Try Again
by chezchuckles
Summary: COMPLETE at Chapter 21. After the events of One and Done? and If At First, Kate Beckett discovers what life is like on the other side.
1. Chapter 1

The thing was, she hadn't lost her job.

But it might be only a matter of time.

Kate Beckett had been put on a two-week suspension until further review. Richard Castle, however, took one look at her face as she came out of there and knew it was just as bad as getting fired. She stopped at Captain Montgomery, unclipped her badge, unholstered her gun, and handed both over to her boss even as a police officer tried to lurk inconspicuously in the background. She walked out. She didn't spare Castle a single glance.

He was pissed off and wounded, but he saw, a little bit, the wisdom of her request last Friday. She was not going to be an easy person to live with the next week or so, especially since she still didn't have a resolution. But he wanted the opportunity to decide for himself. And she had withheld that from him.

So he did some sulking; it was only natural. But his sulking alternated with a debilitating concern that kept him holed up in his office, not writing and not eating and not listening when Alexis asked him how he was doing.

"She hasn't called?"

"No," he sighed and finally looked up. In sweatpants, a tshirt he'd worn for the last three days (Saturday, Sunday, and now today, because it still smelled like her), and his laptop balanced on his knees, Castle looked wretched and he knew it.

Alexis sat down on his desk and watched him. He was in his leather writing chair, not the desk chair, and he'd pulled it up to the window to let the sunlight filter over him. "She texted me."

Castle jerked upright. "She did what?"

"She texted me back, I mean."

"You texted her?" He was amazed at how absolutely jealous he was of his own daughter.

"She said she was ok. She said-"

"Let me see. Please. Alexis."

Alexis dug her phone out of her pocket and pulled up the text, glancing at him suspiciously. Castle didn't care, didn't even matter; word from Kate, something from Kate, anything-

"Here, Dad." She handed it over; Rick cradled her phone like a gift, a treasure, and read the little green bubble on the screen. Two green, no wait, four green bubbles worth of text.

_I'm ok. thanks. might see my dad tomorrow. speaking of, tell yours i'm sorry; i know i hurt his feelings._

Hurt his feelings? She had crushed him. She had stomped him. He had done exactly as she had asked all weekend long, and she had done exactly what she had warned him she was going to do. He'd actually expected his good behavior on Saturday and Sunday to earn him special privileges. He'd been wrong.

"You should text her," Alexis said.

"She doesn't want anything to do with me."

"I don't think that's true." She took her phone away from him; his fingers twitched around air, wanting it back, wanting to hold it a little longer. "You don't think that's true either. You're punishing her for needing to be alone because you almost never need to be alone."

"She couldn't even look at me when she left."

"She didn't *leave*, Dad." Alexis huffed into the empty desk chair and rolled it closer. "She told you exactly how she was going to handle this. Come on, stop pouting. Start letting her know you get it. You have two weeks to try to convince her she's better off with you than without you, that even if she wants to be alone, she doesn't really."

Alexis slapped his shoulder and stood up. Like that was supposed to be the end of some great, motivating conversation. Like she'd done her bit and was moving on.

He was pouting. It was Monday. . .no, it was now technically Tuesday morning. "Where've you been?" he asked finally.

"Out. With Ashley," she added hastily. "Not Lauren. I'm sorry. I told you earlier today, but I don't know that you heard me."

"Doing what with Ashley? on a Monday night."

"Dad," she rolled her eyes, but sat back down in the desk chair. "Hanging out. You know."

"I don't know. Hanging out where?"

"Does it matter?"

"Is it a secret?"

They faced off, Castle irritated and wounded and still a little bit scared about what might happen to Alexis if she wasn't being seriously honest with him about this Lauren stuff, and mostly a lot scared about what might happen to Kate if she wasn't also being seriously honest with him.

"We went to the library, the one on Fifth. Dylan's for chocolate covered Oreos. Back to his place because he wanted me to hear this old album he likes by the Flaming Lips-"

"Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots?"

She laughed. "That's the one. You have that?"

"Of course. It's so good. Did you listen to the whole thing?"

She nodded, and then got that sly look on her face which meant she an idea. "Hey, give me that." Alexis leaned over and grabbed the laptop, then spent an inordinate amount of time looking really pleased with herself. A song started playing that he remembered. "My favorite was this one, Fight Test. It's about this guy who regrets not standing up for himself, not fighting for what he wants-"

"All right. I got it. Don't need to beat me over the head with it-"

"And he says, 'I should have fought him but instead I let him take you.' And I just think-"

"I said I got it," Castle growled, getting up and grabbing his laptop back from her. But he wasn't mad, he was just exhausted. And it was only the first day. Weary with fighting himself, weary with wanting her, weary with not knowing what to do next. "I'll text Kate."

"Right now."

He sighed again and closed the laptop, pulled out his phone. "Right now."

* * *

><p>Kate was curled up in bed trying to ignore the sunlight that flowed through her apartment like water, like clear and beautiful water. She wanted her mom. She wanted to feel her mom's fingertips against her temples, soothing the headache that came from tears she wouldn't cry. She wanted the press of her mom's lips against her forehead and the way her mom would've jerked back the covers and made her get out of bed.<p>

Her eyes hurt. Her hip hurt on this side. Maybe she had been lying here too long. But if she rolled over, the sunlight would be right against her eyelids, like a finger pressing at her eyeballs.

She wanted her mom. She ached in every place.

Anger hadn't sustained her long. Anger had gotten her out of the review board and into the street without crying. Anger had gotten her a taxi to the gym, forget walking, and anger had propelled her through two hours of rigorous martial arts combat training. She drilled her opponents into the ground. She battered a medicine ball against the wall repeatedly. She perfected her left hook until she couldn't lift her arm, her shoulder numb and thick. She kicked the practice dummy in the face until her hip socket felt loose and rubbery, like it was elastic.

Then she ran for an hour, heading home supposedly, but taking the really long way. No headphones, wrong shoes, her jacket tied around her waist. Sweat poured off of her by the time she got home, ran sticky between her breasts and thighs, made her eyes burn so badly she was forced to keep her left one closed.

Too much effort to shower. She dropped into bed and slept for a long long time.

And when she woke up, she wasn't angry any more; she was just tired. Still tired. The morning sun was like a shimmering promise of things that didn't and wouldn't happen to her, not Kate Beckett. She had traded her old life of theatre productions and summer houses and French literature for the world of death and justice. She had made a deal; she had stuck to it.

Now it had been denied her as well. So what did she have left? This wasn't pity, wasn't anything. It was a cold analysis of what her life had been and now what it was not. No justice for her mother, and now, she no longer had the respite of achieving justice for the myriad others who fell victim to evil. If she was no longer the girl who spoke French and threw soirees, and now she was also not the girl who tracked killers and locked them away, then she was what?

She was tired. And she wanted to sleep but it wouldn't be given back to her today.

So Kate stayed curled in her bed, head and hip aching, ignoring whatever other bruises existed deeper down.

It was in this state that her phone vibrated noisily on the bedside table. Like a Mexican jumping bean. To turn it off, she reached out a hand and scooped it off the table.

But she made the mistake of looking.

Castle. And her heart, which she hadn't known still worked, thudded too painfully. Her fingers had minds of their own and she was reading the text before she could stop herself.

_I love you._

And then she cried.


	2. Chapter 2

Richard Castle found his daughter upstairs listening to The Flaming Lips with her earbuds in, singing just under her breath as she surfed the 'net on her laptop. "You won't let those robots defeat me. Oh Yoshimi." She was even making the robot noises with her mouth. Badly. But still. A daughter he could be proud of.

Her hair was scraped back into a neat and precise ponytail, which bobbed as she sang, sitting cross-legged on her bed. Rick let the sight wash over him with a smile before he remembered why it was that he'd come looking for her, and then the smile was gone.

He tugged on her ponytail and she startled, a pen flying over his shoulder, books toppling to the floor. Rick reached down to snag her computer before it could fall. She jerked an earbud out and gave him that doe in the headlights look. "Dad!"

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. Is that my Flaming Lips cd?"

She grinned and helped up her iPod. "Mine now. It's gone into the Vault." Alexis had named her black 80GB iPod the Vault after her laptop had crashed a few years back and she'd had to retrieve all of her music from the little black thing.

"Excellent. You should listen to their other albums, equally good."

"You okay?" she asked, scooting over so he could sit beside her on her purple comforter with its grey-leaved pattern.

"I think I blew it," he said in a rush, wincing as her face went dark.

"What did you do?"

Wordlessly, he handed her his phone, still open to that last text. That final text. That first text.

She read it, but instead of an exasperated _when will he ever learn?_ sigh from Alexis, his daughter's face blushed furiously and he thought, maybe, maybe, she was trying not to cry. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Dad," she breathed, her brimming eyes meeting his. "You love her?"

His words were stopped up somewhere in his chest, must be, because his chest was too full and tight, and he couldn't reach down far enough to even say _Yes_. So he nodded. And then took his phone from his daughter's nerveless hand, clearing his throat forcefully to get things moving again. "I didn't blow it? She hasn't texted me back."

She gave him a wan smile and shrugged. "I don't know. I think if I got a text like that I. . .I'd think it was the sweetest, best thing ever. But I might not know how to reply to that. What do you say in text to someone who's just made the whole world all over for you?"

Castle's chest eased a little and he wrapped his daughter in a fierce hug. "Thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna go with that explanation. It's the kindest."

She nodded against his shoulder, but when he would have let go, she clung a little more tightly to him. "You really love her."

He sighed into the top of her head and pressed a kiss to her hair, trying to wrestle himself back into father mode, out of the funk of semi-rejection. "You gonna be ok?"

"I think it's about time," she said haughtily, and leaned back to smile widely at him. That brilliant, Alexis sunshine. "I like Kate more than anyone you've ever met. More than anyone you've ever _married_."

He snorted. "I married your mom."

A delicate eyebrow rose. "Exactly."

"Touche. But I didn't say I was marrying Kate."

"You'd better!" Alexis jerked back from him, slapping his shoulder. "She spent all weekend here, Dad. She didn't even go home. She had no clothes here; she had to borrow mine."

He cast a flabbergasted look at her serious face. "Are you kidding me? What does having no clothes have to do with getting married? And like *you* have any experience with this?"

She laughed and socked him again, pushing his shoulder so that he teetered dangerously close to the edge of her bed. "I'm just saying. If a girl wants to spend all weekend with you, so badly that she doesn't even go home for her own clothes-"

"Oh," he said, blinking at his genius of a daughter. "I *really* like that explanation. You think?"

"Dad, she borrowed one of my tshirts. She wore the same pair of jeans all weekend. . .and those she pulled out of her trunk, remember? You think any girl wants to wear the same clothes all weekend?"

"I kinda thought she just didn't feel like she had to impress me. Which, uh, actually made me think she didn't *care* to impress me."

Alexis tilted her head. "Hm, well you got me there."

"No, don't say that!" he moaned, grabbing her shoulders. "Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me-"

"Okay, okay, you're wrong!" She was giggling. It made him smile back, his eyes crinkling. "Weren't *you* wearing that shirt all weekend too?"

He mimicked her nasal voice, hand shaped like a puppet, then pushed her back on her bed. "Sure, fine. Be that way."

She giggled again and pushed at his thighs with her feet to dislodge him. "You did! That's gross, Dad. Why are you still wearing that shirt?"

Rick ruthlessly went after her feet, tickling with mad dad skills, grinning as she shrieked. "You dare insult my fashion sense?"

She tried to jerk her feet back. "Not your fashion sense, your sense of smell! It reeks."

"It does not!" Distracted by her claim, he paused to lift his sleeve to his nose. "It still smells like Kate."

Alexis went still, half reclining on the bed, one foot captured in his left hand, the other drawn up under her body. The uncontrollable grin on her face dropped a little. "Dad."

He knew it sounded bad. He hadn't meant to reveal that much. "Yeah, okay."

"Just call her. Or show up at her door. I can't imagine she'd turn you away." Alexis got to her knees and threw her arms around her father. "No one could turn you away."

Richard hugged her back, stroking her hair with fondness. "You're a great kid, you know that? A great kid." He felt like an idiot, tearing up over his daughter, talking about someone who didn't even want to *see* him right now, let alone marry him.

She leaned back, looking intently at him, then leaned in to kiss his cheek. "You're a great dad. And you know what? Kate would be crazy to give you away. Plus, I want little brothers and sisters. I'm thinking at least two. At least."

Rick's mouth dropped open as Alexis laughed.

* * *

><p>At the start of things, she had expected a period of mourning. She'd expected some weepiness, a free-floating anger, and heavy-duty anxiety. She had it planned out. She needed about four days. Just four days. She'd told Castle-<p>

She couldn't think about that right now. She needed to find a way to fall asleep tonight. She had a kick-boxing routine ready to go, and some yoga she knew by heart, but after another hour of deliberate, precise training on the mat in the front room, her legs were shaking so hard from exhaustion that she could barely keep her correct stance. Kate gave it up.

Her phone was on the coffee table, turned on silent. Not off; she'd promised him she wouldn't do that. That text was still up on the screen. She couldn't look at it. She wouldn't.

What next? She was moving from aching emptiness to panic. . .too overwhelming, too much. Kate jerked away from the coffee table and headed for the shower. If she showered, then she wasn't too bad off, right? Basic hygiene was the first to go when depression took hold. She remembered her father's-

She couldn't think about that right now either. She most likely would not be visiting him tomorrow, despite what she'd texted Alexis. She couldn't handle telling her father that she was on suspension, that they might take away her badge, her reason for being.

Kate made the water as hot as she thought she could stand it and stripped. Her hands were shaking. She peed, washed her hands, brushed her teeth while the water in the shower ran and the place steamed up. Still, she could see her face in the mirror, old and tired. No make-up, no color, lines along the side of her mouth. She rubbed her hands down her face and stalked to the shower. The water burned.

In the cocoon of the shower curtain and tub, she had to sit down. Her legs wouldn't hold her up. She leaned over and put her head against the cold porcelain. A shiver went through her body, the sting of the shower against her side while heat flared up her cheeks and pooled at her temples. It could not be good that she was both sweating and shivering.

Just a minute to rest. Just a second. And then she'd get up and shower out the sweat and grief and be okay again. She didn't know *who* she would be, but she would be okay. God, please, she needed to be okay.


	3. Chapter 3

Instead of showing up at her door, which Rick Castle was certain would cause him to be turned away (and he could *not* handle that), he sent her flowers. He would abide by her 'no texting' policy, and her 'no visiting' policy for now. The flowers were a way to show her that he was thinking about her, hurting for her, that he wanted to make it better. He sent flowers.

Five times in five hours.

First were orchids, because they required care and were delicate and beautiful, but so strong. He put a great deal of thought into them. And then he panicked about how luxurious or rich that might appear to her, like he was already trying to take control of her life, and after that thought came the memory of some literature class about symbology, female symbology, and didn't the orchid look like a certain part of a woman's-

So he panicked and tried to cancel that order, but it had already gone out, so to make up for the orchids, he sent gerber daisies because they were just relentlessly cheerful. Bright red, all of them, in a blue pot. He'd gone to the store to pick them out himself, instead of calling in the order, even though the paparazzi had caught wind of the review board story and were following him again. They'd taken a lot of photos of him picking out flowers, which was unfortunate when he thought about it.

Understatement. It was way more than unfortunate. It was no good. The red daisies with his nose in them on page six? She'd dump those as soon as she could, get rid of the evidence. They were already sent; but he went home and googled florists in *her* neighborhood and then picked something out online. A bouquet this time, not a potted plant that needed looking after (as if he was saying that he expected her to take care of him), made up of white calla lilies in a crystal vase that cost him a little over a hundred dollars. Which seemed extraordinarily cheap for getting back on Kate Beckett's good side (if he ever really was no longer on her good side).

And since he was in no mood to write chapters of Nikki Heat tangling with bad guys when her alter ego was stuck at home, Castle did some web surfing and found really amazing ideas for things to send. First of all, he found something called Edible Arrangements, and they just looked so cool he couldn't help spending an hour clicking through their catalog. He'd already sent the calla lilies, and they were beautiful, really they were, but he was kinda sorta falling in love with the idea of sending her something she might have to eat.

She needed to eat. She tended to forget to do that. He remembered the look on her face at Dylan's, so he paid for a dozen chocolate-dipped strawberry roses, delivered in a long, red box. They would look like flowers but she could eat them. Castle hadn't seen her often go to town on a pint of ice cream (unlike himself, and alas, Alexis as well) but he couldn't imagine someone in her condition saying no to chocolate. He sat back in his chair, content, happy with this purchase at least, and then realized how syrupy, sweetly romantic that might seem to her. And then he changed his mind again and had to figure out something else to do.

He knew that four different deliveries in one day was a bit much. A lot much. He knew that. But now that he'd gone all out trying to get it right, it would be foolish and wasteful to leave it incomplete and lackluster like this.

It was nearly noon. Esposito had texted him about their fantasy baseball draft. He felt guilty for not coming down to the station to see the boys, so he ordered them huge helpings of lunch specials (3, 9, and 13) from El Mezcal around the corner. They had delivered to the precinct before; they'd be able to get in no problem. Dennis Munoz, the owner, rang up his credit card, and he promised to have his son deliver the food himself.

Thinking about lunch reminded him of Dylan's last week, and then he had a great idea. His best idea yet. Perfect. Best thing about it? It'd cost him almost nothing; and since Kate liked flashy almost as much as she liked paparazzi, this was the thing that would win her over.

* * *

><p>It was only when the water started to get cold that Kate snapped out of it and moved from the bottom of the tub. She was shivering so hard that she had trouble keeping hold of the soap. The shampoo ran down her face when she fell forward into the spray, and the burn in her eyes felt too familiar. Rinsing her hair, her body, her teeth chattered so hard she bit her tongue.<p>

Kate finally turned off the water and crawled out of the clawfoot tub; she had to use both hands on the side to keep from falling. She was trembling so hard that drying off with a towel was an exercise in torture, but she hobbled back towards her room for clean clothes without the comfort of the terry cloth, choosing to let the goose bumps rise on her skin and her bones creak as she moved.

Punishment. She knew the symptoms for what they were. She'd been to three years of therapy after failing to solve her mother's case the first time; she knew all of her signs. Self-punishment, no appetite, exhaustion. . .she overworked, overdid, under-cared for her body. Didn't mean she could actually stop herself from doing it, but she did at least recognize her self-destructive behavior.

Once in her room, she thought she heard a scratch at her door, but she paused and there was nothing. She let out a shaky, relieved breath and went into her closet for some clothes. She still had Alexis's tshirt from this weekend. She pulled it out of the dirty clothes hamper and clutched it against her shivering chest. Bra, underwear, jeans. And before she realized what she was doing, she was dressed in that same, girly tshirt. It smelled like Castle's place. Like Castle himself.

She ripped it off again and shoved it deep into her laundry, burying it. Her hands were still shaking. Adjusting her bra straps, Kate peered into a drawer of her grungy clothes and pulled out an oversized black tshirt. It was soft; the breast pocket was unraveling on one side, limp, and the sleeves flared at her shoulders. It looked sexier than she meant it to, she realized, and wondered what subconscious thoughts were still lurking in the back of her brain today.

The phone was on the coffee table.

And then she really did hear something at her door, and even though she felt a mess, she crept through the living room towards her front door, never in her life so aware of not having a weapon. Her heart raced, making her dangerously light-headed, and her palms sweat.

Then the door buzzed; she jumped a mile and landed hard on the side of her foot, a hand clapped over her mouth. She winced her way to the door and peered through the peephole before opening it to a delivery guy.

And saw that the front of her door was papered with little delivery notes: specialty places with cutesy names and curling font. The guy in front of her handed her a clipboard, which she signed sloppily, and then gave over a package and left. Kate stood in her doorway staring at the delivery notes, then ripped them off the door. Heart still trying to recover from earlier, she turned and dropped the box on the hall table, then grabbed her keys and locked up. She shuffled down to the office manager's with the notes in her hand.

Office manager Mark had to call the janitor and a maintenance worker to help carry everything back. The flowers were huge, dwarfing things that were hard to see around. She held the smallest, a long, thin box that looked like roses (she would murder him) but smelled like chocolate. Calla lillies, daisies, and vivid purple orchids that she'd have to figure out how to take care of. She knew already that she'd kill the daisies; she always had, despite loving them so much, and she would do it again no doubt. Overwater them or not enough, somehow she managed to finish them off within a week. And yet, every summer she bought a new pot from the little nursery down the corner in the hopes that she could change.

She would never change. The daisies were a bright, brilliant reminder.

She thanked Mark, thanked Andy and Jamal for their help, then closed the door after them. She locked it. She put a trembling hand to the door and pressed her forehead against her hand, weak at the knees. The box, still resting on her hall table, caught her eye.

The flowers, the chocolate, all from Castle. Of course. She didn't want to look at it all. It was overkill. It felt intrusive. But the box she had signed for was stamped with the logo of a custom weapons shop, Gunny's. It was the maker of choice for most of the guys at the 12th. And that was just downright strange. Ryan and the Captain had both gotten their extra pieces from Gunny's. And Esposito had a specialty weapon he'd had the man make, then paid for with about three years' worth of overtime. She remembered how Esposito had cradled that weapon like a baby.

She used her fingernail to slit the packing tape, causing a piece of cardboard to give her a papercut. She sucked on her stinging thumb while she used her other hand to rip back the flaps of the box. Inside that were four other boxes, one with Gunny's logo, the other two Tiffany's.

Her heart started to pound and she had to sit down. Immediately. In the floor with the box to her chest, the front door at her back.

The boxes were numbered. She started with the first one, from Gunny's, and pried it open with her shaking hands.

She burst into hysterical laughter, leaning against the door. Edible handcuffs. Oh, the absolute sheer nerve of Richard Castle. She dumped them on the floor and a card fluttered down, like a name placard for private stationary. She scooped it up and read his blocky scrawl:

_Partners. Always._

And something told her that opening those boxes labelled Tiffany's wouldn't end her. She picked up number two and popped open the blue lid. Rolling her eyes, she lifted out a sheet of red candy button stick-on earrings. She plucked the third blue velvet box from the bottom and opened it without hesitation: a candy necklace, all pastel colors and sharp sweet tang. She pulled it out and stretched it around her head, feeling the weight of the little pieces of candy at her collarbones. She pulled a white one up to her mouth and crunched it off with her teeth. She had always eaten the white ones first; she liked them least.

Licking the sugar from her thumb, she then reached for the fourth box with a flickering smile on her face. The blue velvet was larger than she expected, but shaped familiarly, square with that domed top. Despite knowing that it couldn't possibly be real, couldn't possibly, her hands were still shaking as she opened it.

A Ring Pop. Nestled in the brilliant white of the ring box. She twisted the ties free and slid it on her finger, then took an experimental lick. Red cherry. There was a card folded up in the ring box's top, and she pulled it out with two fingers.

_At any time, you say the word, you give me a sign, and I will make this real. __Partners._

Her phone was still on the coffee table.


	4. Chapter 4

_You are a goofball,_ it read.

What did that mean? Was that a good thing? Richard Castle leaned forward in his chair, his bare feet curling against the wooden floor, and stared at his phone. It sounded good. In fact, there was no emo face attached to the text, but he could practically see Beckett rolling her eyes.

"Alexis!" he yelled, and stood up from his chair, certain he needed a woman's opinion. Where was his mother lately?

And then his phone jangled in his hand. He stared at it, not comprehending the sound, and watched her beautiful face on the caller id for what seemed like ages. Too long to leave it ringing, for sure.

"Kate?" he answered, and winced at the strangled note in his voice.

"Castle. Get over here."

And then the phone was dead.

"Alexis!" he bellowed, and went running for the stairs. For help.

* * *

><p>The boys had an excellent lunch. They were stuffed, quite frankly, and it made them slow. Particularly, it made Esposito slow, and he knew he should know better, but he had still stuffed his face with El Mezcal's #13. The grease and cheese and peppers were practically oozing out of his pores, his shaved head. It made him slow.<p>

Which is why, when the elevator popped open and the Chief of Police stalked into the Captain's office, Esposito didn't even get to his feet. Ryan, who'd seen the same thing but was in a similar lunch-coma, tossed Espo a panicked look.

"That couldn't have been good."

"Where are you on the ID for our crispy?" They'd gotten a body call Monday night; they were working it without Beckett, who was not only on suspension, but also a bit AWOL. Too AWOL for Esposito's liking. He knew that woman, knew her habits and her idiosyncrasies, and a Beckett you couldn't reach by phone for help on a case was not a healthy Beckett.

But Esposito was fairly certain Castle was taking care of that. Thus the lunch. And the coma. And the slowness.

Ryan shuffled papers back and forth looking for something. "We've got beat cops asking tattoo parlors about the girl's artwork. Someone somewhere has got to remember putting that much ink on a girl her age."

"So no ID," Esposito growled. 15 year old girl. Third degree burns on her face. Stabbed.

Ryan waved him off. "Still checking missing persons myself."

"Checking by hand sucks."

"You got it, bro." He put up for a fist bump but Esposito stared him down.

"Think the Chief of Police is on to the girl?"

"It is strange."

Very. The tattooed girl was found murdered in that same alley where Beckett's mom was found. The tattooed girl was stabbed in the same exact way. And Lanie said, despite being burned, she'd been stabbed first. Burning was a way to slow down the id process. "We know it's a copycat. It can't be Mrs. Beckett's murderer because that guy is dead. Coonan is dead. So whoever did this-"

"Has got to be sending a message," Ryan finished up grimly. "Chief of Police *has* to know about it."

"Well, look busy; here he comes." Esposito murmured, and ducked his head back in his report from Lanie.

Montgomery and the Chief stopped at Ryan's desk and asked how they were doing. If Esposito wasn't in such a post-lunch-haze, he'd have sworn that the Chief looked downright nervous. Jittery even.

But it could be the peppers talking to him.

Ryan gave him the rundown, trying to look terribly efficient, and Esposito watched the Chief. The man was certainly sweating. He wasn't wearing his dress uniform, so no meeting with city council leaders today, but his dress shirt had rings under the pits. It was cool in the bullpen too. He looked like he was anxious. It was only Tuesday.

Chief was worried. Esposito narrowed his eyes and thought for a moment. Chief was worried about this dead girl.

This dead girl had some connection to Beckett's mom. And that meant, this dead girl had some connection to Beckett's suspension.

* * *

><p>Kate Beckett was a wreck. She was still damp from her shower, make-up-less, and she had so little calories in her that her hands shook every time she performed some basic function. The chocolate smelled heavenly, but the moment she put it on her tongue, it was overwhelming. She opened her fridge and just the feel of the cold air across her neck made her stomach quiver.<p>

She was going to throw up.

She bolted for the bathroom and made it just in time to fall at the base of the toilet and dry heave. Nothing in her stomach but acid, which burned a hole in her throat as it came up.

Had she really told Castle to come over? Maybe that had been a delirious dream. Surely she wasn't that stupid.

She washed out her mouth with a handful of water, squeezing toothpaste straight onto her tongue, swishing, and resolved not to even look at food. She'd always been like this. After her mother died, she'd dropped twenty-five pounds and been hospitalized for dehydration twice. She couldn't keep things down when she was stressed. This stressed. This was a different stress than the usual, of course. During a case, she'd forget to eat until Castle brought her something or forced her to stop while they were out. She ate half of whatever it was. That was the good kind of stress.

This kind was crippling.

The door buzzed.

Oh...damn. She *had* been that stupid.

She ripped the ragged shirt off her back and stumbled for her bedroom, rooting around for something a little less disgusting. She tugged on her pajama top, a loose, purple thing that fell off one shoulder. Fine. That would have to do. The door buzzed again.

Unlocking the deadbolt was excruciating, both because she was so nervous she could fall over, and also because she was about to drop with exhaustion. Working out four hours in one day had been a good idea for de-stressing, but a bad idea when coupled with not eating.

She yanked the door open and there he was.

"Rick."

And then she was crushed in his violent hug, his arms wrapped tight around her, shoulders and waist, her chest pressed against his, her legs between his, her head being pressed down to his shoulder. And she could finally breathe. Finally.

"Katie, Katie, Katie," he was murmuring, pressing his lips to her temple.

She took a ragged, cleansing breath, clutched fistfuls of his tshirt with her hands, determined not to cry. Only her parents called her that. She missed her mom; she had *failed* her mom.

"What am I going to do?" she thought she whispered, but the sound of her name on Castle's tongue was too loud for either of them to hear her.

And that was okay. It was better that way.

"You need to eat," he said, still holding her too close, too tight.

She waited for it, quiet in his arms, but her stomach stayed in its place. Her shoulders came down a little, her body melted a little more.

"We'll figure something out," he said finally.

She didn't know if he meant for dinner, or for the rest of her life. But knowing he had her back, partners-

"Thank you."

She wasn't sure which one of them said it.


	5. Chapter 5

"You need to eat."

"I'll throw up." She was still buried against his chest; that was perfect, because he was unwilling to step away.

"Something easy, something bland." He spoke into the top of her head, his breath and chest moving together, her body round and slight against his. He'd never felt her so small. She was like sticks bundled against him.

"I don't know."

He considered that a victory. "Let me take you out somewhere."

She jerked back. "No. I'm not going out there with *you*!" And then the sound of it must have hit her just as it hit him, and she clapped her hands to her cheeks. "I didn't mean that. Not like that. Castle-"

"I know," he soothed and reached for her again, not wanting to lose the contact of her body against his. She didn't come back to his arms though. "But don't you think I'm one who knows how to keep a low profile?"

She raised an eyebrow, but she had stepped a bit closer. "No."

The speculation on her face, the quirk of her lip, the fight in her eyes, these things eased the fist around his heart, just a little. "I know where to go to be unnoticed, Kate. I know where to go to avoid the curious eyes of a less-than-adoring public. And remember, it's not like a lot of people even care about police review boards."

She raised an eyebrow.

He winced. "That came out wrong."

"Makes two of us," she said softly, and stepped a little closer.

"I meant. . .while yeah, 313 people out there were given a sneak peek of those questions, no one else in the city knows your name. Except as Nikki Heat maybe. The bomb was classified. The review board was under wraps-"

"But the reporters were there. They knew about it."

"They smelled something. They're still hunting it down. But I'm serious, Kate. The only way you're going to make the news is if the city council violates the National Secrets Act."

She gave him a slow grin. "We don't have that, Castle. That's the UK."

"Well whatever it is. We had to sign something."

"We did."

"So let's go get dinner." She was close enough now to snag, so he did, tucking her back against his chest. "Stop hiding. There's no reason for you to hide."

* * *

><p>Ryan had the bright idea. Not Esposito. Well, technically, it had been Castle's bright idea last weekend, but they hadn't run it down, and probably never would have, if it hadn't been for the tattooed girl. Ryan couldn't stop thinking about that girl. Fifteen. Face burned. Stabbed like Beckett's mother. No identification yet.<p>

"If these two are related, then we should probably head over to NYU." Ryan said finally, dropping to his chair with another stack of missing reports. "Remember what Castle said?"

Esposito looked up, rubbing the side of his face. "About the messenger being a hired actor? Yeah. NYU's theatre department, I remember. What of it?"

"I think we should run it down." Ryan leaned forward eagerly. "Come on, Castle breaks cases wide open with these things. We bring the sketch down there; we hit up the college students, find a teacher or something, see what shakes out."

Esposito didn't look encouraged. "The bike messenger was a college student, so what? What are we gonna get from that?"

"Another sketch?" Ryan said, shrugging. "We find the college student, maybe he remembers the guy who hired him. Maybe our perp was in a rush, wanted to get this done quickly, so he went in person to recruit someone, flashed a few hundreds from his wallet-"

"All right, Castle," Esposito sneered. "Enough with the story. Let's run it down." Esposito stood and grabbed his jacket, notebook, checked his holster. "Better be worth it."

Ryan grabbed his own jacket, pushed on his holster to check it was secure. Safety on. Badge on his waistband. "I've got a good feeling about this one."

* * *

><p>Kate Beckett wasn't sure how she'd gotten here. And that seemed to be the story of her life with Castle. Always finding herself doing things she never thought she'd do, going places with him she would never have gone before. Breaking the rules.<p>

Oh God, she'd really broken the rules with him. Not just once, but over and over. She could lose her job.

Kate pressed a hand to her chest, bowing her head for a moment. Castle was right behind her, stumbling into her, and she picked up her steps to get out of his way.

"See?" he said, as if he'd mistaken her moment for hesitance. "Look how dim it is in here. No famous people. No reporters or photographers. Just us. I keep expecting this place to go out of business any day now, but here it is."

Kate allowed him to think he needed to convince her, stayed at the threshold to look around. It was dim, and a little grubby-looking, but what place in New York wasn't? There was a pizza buffet at the back, tables crowded together, and almost no one was eating. It was only four though.

"Did this place pass inspection?" she asked with a grimace and wiped her fingers along the half-wall that served as a barricade between the entry and the dining area.

"Oh come on," Castle whined. "Give it a chance. Have I ever steered you wrong?"

She gave him another raised eyebrow, but he was grinning. Evidently, an eyebrow was exactly what he'd been looking for. Castle grabbed her elbow and dragged her to an empty table, past the sign that asked them to seat themselves. As soon as they had sat down, a waiter slouched towards them with a stained white apron around his waist. No pen or paper to write down their order, no real interest in his eyes at all.

"What'll it be?" He scratched at a spot on his scalp, looked at his fingernail.

"Buffet. Two." Castle held up two fingers, then gave Kate an evil grin. "And a couple waters."

A buffet was exactly what she didn't want. But there were no menus in sight and the waiter was gone before she could say anything else. A glass of water was fine; she needed to replenish fluids after her workout. Workouts. But a whole buffet of greasy pizza?

"Pizza?" She shook her head at him. "Castle. . .I don't feel up to this."

Castle was already standing up, holding out a hand for hers. "Come on. Give it a shot. Don't be scared."

She rolled her eyes and stood up on her own, disregarding his hand. "I'm not scared." But she followed him across the empty room towards the back.

At the buffet, the heat lamps made her a little sick, her cheeks flushed and her palms damp. Kate took a moment to gather herself, just like at the door, and again, Castle mistook it for distaste. She was about to make a comment, when she caught the look on his face.

Damn. He was *pretending* to think she was disgusted. He was letting her save face. How did he do that? How did he know?

"Salad. Pizza. Breadsticks. Dessert. All here," he said, spreading his hands out to the squat display of heated foods and orange light. "Dig in."

He grabbed two plates, handed one to her, and went off on a gathering expedition. She stood there, breathing shallowly, trying not to let her stomach rise. This was ridiculous. She didn't need Castle taking care of her, tiptoeing around her, pretending that everything was okay so that she'd man up and do her job.

Not her job. She swallowed hard. Not her job right now.

Kate put that out of her mind. She clutched the plate and moved in. The pizza was. . .exotic. To say the least. She felt a little smile curling the edges of her mouth. It was a Castle kind of place. Pineapples with bacon and jalapenos. Cream cheese, green onion, and crab. Roasted cherries, walnuts, and. . .was that cabbage? Kate's mouth was definitely starting to smile, despite herself, if it wasn't exactly watering. Not yet anyway.

She took something that looked as close to pizza margherita as she could get, then went ahead and took a slice of Peking duck, scallions, and plum sauce. It actually smelled good. Finally. She glanced down the line towards the desserts and noticed the placards: cookie dough pizza, cream cheese with fruit, smores, brownie pizza. Sweets overload. But under the heat lamps, it did smell good. It finally looked good. It was one of the nastiest, grungiest pizza parlors she'd ever been to, but it looked good. Go figure.

Pizza and candy handcuffs. This was Richard Castle.


	6. Chapter 6

So now they had another sketch artist in the interview room, taking direction from a college kid named Almond Bradley who had been labelled by his fellow actors as "Perpetual Understudy." He was average everything, just as the paralegal had said, but the college student had definitely been a better observer. His description was detailed. Almond. Ryan shook his head and waited for the artist to be done. Who was named Almond?

The sketch artist stood up and handed Ryan the drawing; Ryan stood up from his slump against the door and took it.

And the sketch was familiar.

Ryan, feeling like he was holding a bomb in his hands, walked out into the bullpen, and headed straight for his partner. He handed the sketch to Esposito. "Look like someone?"

Esposito took the sketch, studied it for half a second, and then slapped it facedown on his desk. "Shit."

"I know."

"Shit, bro."

"What do we do now?"

Esposito put his palm flat on the sketch and glanced to the interview room. "We still got Bradley back there?"

"Almond? Yeah. Sketch artist is on his way out." Ryan shoved his hands in his pockets and waited on his partner.

"Sketch artist know who this was?" he asked, tapping the page.

"Nope."

"Bradley think he'd seen this guy before?"

"Nope."

"Shit." Esposito fisted his hands and propped up his chin. "We need Beckett."

"She's got her phone off. She's suspended."

"Dude, this is big. This is. . .we need Beckett."

Ryan sighed and glanced around the room, checking to see if anyone was listening. "I'll call Castle."

* * *

><p>Kate woke suddenly, disoriented, but she was in her own bed. In her own clothes. Right. Pizza buffet. A ten minute stop in the bathroom when she was certain she was going to be sick, but had managed to keep it down. They'd gone back to her place after that, and she'd told Castle to go home, let her sleep it off.<p>

What had woken her? Alarm clock, her brain supplied, but that couldn't be right. Then she heard murmuring. Confused, still off-balanced, Kate sat up in her bed, pushing back her hair. Funny taste in her mouth. Castle's murmur from the other room.

She slid out of bed, caught herself on her bedside table as her knees collapsed. "Whoa."

It took a second, but her brain began working again. She glanced down-no pants. Huh. That was different. But there they were, black leggings, in a pile on the floor. She tugged them on, sitting on the bed because her balance was still a little weak, then stood up again.

She headed for the living room, arms raised to push her hair back again.

Kate ran right into Castle at the doorway, ricocheted off him with a grunt, but Castle caught her arms and held on, keeping her upright.

"You're awake," he said.

"Not awake. Just up."

He grinned.

"Who were you talking to?"

"Up and paranoid, niiiice," he murmured, but she saw that the humor just wasn't in his eyes.

"Castle. I haven't had any cofffee."

"It's still night time. You need a sleeping pill, not caffeine."

"It's close enough," she snarled and shook off his hands. "Who were you talking to?"

"Ryan. He's worried; he has a case. But first-"

"You told him not to worry. You told him I'm suspended."

He took a moment to roll his eyes at her. It looked strange on him. Wrong. "I did. But first, Kate-"

This was it. The brush off? Or something else. She steeled herself for it, knitting her eyebrows, frowning, getting ready. Sorry for this weekend, sorry for leading you on, sorry for. . .

"I got called to testify."

"Where?" Oh. Oh that. "The review board." Her stomach plummeted. "Fuck." She put a hand to her forehead.

"Kate. I think you should tell me what it is you told them. Get our stories straight." He was trying out a grin.

"There's nothing to get straight. They ask a question, you answer it. With the truth, Castle."

He searched her face for something, but she had no intention of telling him.

"Kate. This is serious."

"You think I don't know that?" She knew she was getting angry to keep from giving in to him. She knew it. But she also knew that if she told him what they were after, he'd lie to protect her. She couldn't have that. First of all, Richard Castle would never be able to pull it off. He'd tell some elaborate story and put just one wrong detail in there, smile at the wrong time. . .

"Just tell me what to say, Kate. Tell me what it is they've got over you."

"Castle!" She stepped back, crossed her arms over her chest.

"They suspended you for a reason. You don't want to talk about it, fine. But I've known you long enough to know they've got absolutely *no* grounds for this. And yet they did it anyway. I mean, you *saved* the whole city. That should earn you some respect-"

She rolled her eyes. "You'd think, right?"

"But instead, you're suspended." He grabbed her by the shoulders, ducked to look into her eyes. "Come on, Kate. I don't want to walk into a trap here."

His fingers were starting to bruise her shoulders. "It's not a trap laid for you, Castle."

"The hell it is. It's a trap laid for _you_. You think that doesn't hurt me?"

She shook off his fingers, rolled her shoulders to get rid of the numbness tingling down to her hands from his grip. "Castle, you tell them the truth. You hear me? This is the city council; you're under oath up there."

"I know that. But the truth has clothes, Kate. You dress it just right, and you can make it easier on the eyes. Trust me; I know what I'm talking about."

"Castle," she warned, walking away from him. She needed coffee. And a piece of bread to settle her stomach. Too much grease. Too much cheese.

But he caught her arm and tugged her back around. His face was brittle, his eyes intense. He looked. . .wounded. Really wounded, not stupid puppy wounded. He looked like she was grinding her heel into his heart. Her own heart clenched in response.

"Kate, don't do this to me. Please don't. _Talk_ to me. Don't set me up to be the one to bring you down."

Oh God, how did he always do this to her? She wanted to be strong; she wanted to do what was right, what was smartest, but instead she took one look in his face, listened to that voice and those words, and he had her. He had her every time. She wanted so badly to protect him. And he wanted to protect her. And where did that leave them?

"There's nothing you can do about it, Castle. Nothing. You tell them the truth. You try to lie and they'll crucify us both. You lie, and they *can* bring criminal charges against you."

"About *what*? About what, Kate? You haven't done anything wrong. I've been there! I know."

She felt fierce; she felt already broken. She didn't want to hurt him, but she wanted him to hurt. As much as it hurt her. "I gave you my gun, Castle. I made a decision in the moment to rely on you instead of doing the right thing. I made you my backup instead of calling for the tac team. I made the wrong choice; I put all our lives in danger. I gave you my gun."

His face went blank. She had hurt him; she had cut him where he was vulnerable. She saw it in the nothing he smoothed across his face; she saw it in the absence of response.

She turned away. She needed coffee for this.


	7. Chapter 7

Rick Castle stood in Kate's living room and tried to breathe.

His chest hurt. Like he was having a heart attack. Could words cause a heart attack?

Sure they could. Didn't he know that already? He'd had his life blown apart once or twice already. First time. . .finding out Meredith was pregnant and that she was thinking about getting rid of it. Alexis. It. Second time. . .finding out Meredith was cheating on him. His own mother had dropped that bomb, rather disgracefully, with much anger on her side of things as she tried to beat the truth into him, and he hadn't wanted to hear it. Third time. . .wow, again Meredith. Well, the judge had finally given him custody of his daughter, and heart attack-inducing bad news hadn't really happened to him since-

Since Kate. He'd had a lot of painful encounters with Kate. More than he liked. Mostly revolving around her almost dying. Or getting close anyway. This was the first time that something she had said to his face had actually cut him.

He needed a moment. He would just take a moment to push this down, seal it off.

Castle pressed his fingers against his pectoral to relieve the pressure building in his chest, tried to wipe the hurt out of his mind. She'd been dealt a terrible blow, in more ways than one; she'd been suspended from the job that gave her life meaning, and she'd been told that she'd put her team in danger by handing him a gun.

Of course, she knew he was a good shot; he'd proved it to her once before. But would that help?

"I want to help," he called out, turning on his heel to go after her. "Kate."

He came into the kitchen, watched her pouring coffee grounds into the machine, pushing buttons. Her hands were shaking. They'd been shaking when he got here, but after dinner at four o'clock, she'd been okay again. Now. . .

"Let's work out what I should say, Kate. You gave me your gun because Agent Shaw was alone with a serial killer, her federal agents were in the wrong building and about to blow themselves up, and it was just us left to save her!"

She said nothing.

"Tell me what to say. Just tell me what to say, Kate."

"The truth." Her voice was like steel. But it lacked true antagonism, and that gave him some measure of hope. A small, tiny ray of hope.

"So they ask me, 'Did Detective Beckett hand you her weapon?' And I say yes. They say, 'Did she ask if you had any training?' And I say no. But I could say instead that Detective Beckett and I had fired on a range together before, that she knew I was a good shot. See how that changes things? I say no, she didn't ask me that, and you sound negligent, Katie. I say, well, she knew I had training, and you sound like you know what you're doing. *Both* things are the truth."

She turned back to him, her eyes heavy. "Castle."

"Both are true, Kate." He'd never felt this desperate to prove his point before, to prove himself. It was as if their entire future hung in the balance at this exact moment. "Help me here."

"It doesn't matter what you say, or how you say it." She shrugged off something, but her shoulders still drooped. "This is something I can't beat."

"What did they do to you?" he whispered, unable to stay still in the face of her resignation. He moved around the countertop between them and tried to catch her, gather her up against himself. But she stepped back, slid to the side to open a cabinet door and pull down coffee mugs. Two, he saw; at least there were two mugs. "What happened?"

"It doesn't matter."

"You went in there determined and came out broken. It matters."

She flashed him a look. "I'm not broken, Castle."

"Coulda fooled me," he shot back, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning a hip against the counter. "Why won't you fight this?"

She spun around, the sugar bowl in one hand, her eyes like flint. "I did what I could. It's up to them now. No matter what you say, Castle, they will find a way to use it against me."

"What happened in there?" It took a tremendous force of will to stay where he was, to not take the sugar bowl out her hands and press her body against his until she stopped ignoring his help, until her hands stopped trembling again.

"Everything got twisted. Everything I said was made to sound wrong. Everything I had reservations about-" She shook her head, pressed a palm to her temple. "I knew better than to let you follow me, Castle. I knew better right from the start, and I ignored it."

Wow. That hurt. Again. "You didn't ignore it. You made it quite clear you didn't want me around."

Her face came up, her eyes startled. She seemed to be looking at him through a fog, and he realized she had no idea that what she'd said had been so hurtful. She was just. . .being honest.

Oh God, she was just being honest. He had ruined her life. With one act of selfishness, one misguided call to the mayor because he'd been bored, he had started them on a path that had led to her downfall. And now that she saw it too, now that she'd been given that lens to see him through, how could she ever see him differently again? He would always be the man she had lost her entire life over.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. And he turned to leave.

* * *

><p>Panic flooded her. Where was he going? Why was he leaving?<p>

She was so stunned, she couldn't move. What the hell was he doing?

She dropped the sugar on the counter and took off after him, catching up to him as he reached the entryway. Kate grabbed his arm, tugged, furious and hurt and pissed at herself for whatever it was that made them all leave her, that always made her too much for them-

"Where are you *going*?"

The look on his face broke her. "Home."

"Why?"

He opened his mouth to explain but nothing came out. He just shrugged and avoided her eyes.

"Rick," she said, and realized she was pleading with him. Hated herself a little for it, but couldn't be bothered to regain her self-respect. "Castle."

His eyes cut to hers, startled himself, and he gently disentangled their hands. "You're right, Kate. This is all my fault. You knew, at the beginning, that this was a bad idea. You warned me that I was going to get one of the guys on your team killed, but I was selfish and I wanted you and I wouldn't go home. Well, I'm going home now. I'm sorry."

"No!" Her heart was beating too hard for her chest to contain it. "We're partners. You said we were partners always. _You said_-"

"And you said you knew better. I have a tendency to get what I want at the expense of other people. Against their better judgment. I don't want you to lose everything that matters to you just because I-"

"_You_ matter to me. Damn it, Castle. You."

She stood before him in the darkness of her loft, her chest too tight to let her breathe, her bones feeling like they might crack, split in two and never be put back together. She wanted to beg him again, but her pride was throwing a fit. She wanted to drop-kick his ass to next week, but she didn't think she could move without falling apart.

And even though it felt like ages since she'd said it, it only took him less than a heartbeat to erase the distance between them and claim her mouth with startling ferocity. Hungry. Desperate. Aching furiousness. Battling her, his whole being behind the force of that kiss. Dominating her, his hands pulling her in tight, bruising. Desperate and drugging as their bodies pressed ever closer, seeking.

Then, when her knees began to let go, he pulled back long enough to suck in a breath and open his eyes and say, "_Kate_."

She breathed, breathed again with her forehead resting against his, her fingers curled around his collar.

"I love you. I _love_ you."

And she didn't know which one of them had spoken.


	8. Chapter 8

Esposito looked up from his dinner-El Mezcal leftovers of course-and waited for Ryan to get settled before starting in on him.

"I thought you were texting Castle."

"I did," Ryan protested, looking up from his own reheated Mexican.

"Then where's Beckett?"

Ryan avoided his eyes and shoved a huge burrito down his gullet. Esposito waited until he'd managed to swallow the bite.

"Bro. Where is Beckett?"

"Castle texted me back."

"And?"

"And he said, I quote, 'We're not in a good place right now. I'll get back to you.'"

Esposito raised an eyebrow and thought about calling Lanie. But he did *not* want to have to deal with a pissed off Lanie when Beckett refused to take even *her* calls. No thank you. "What does that mean? We?"

"Either it means that they're together and Beckett's not doing so well, or it means she kicked him out and Castle's not doing so well with Beckett."

"It could go either way," Esposito said with a grimace. "We really need to get Beckett down here. She's got to look at this sketch; she'll know what to do next."

Ryan cut his eyes to Montgomery's office where the Captain was working on reports. "He hear anything?"

"Not from me. My lips are sealed, bro."

"He's going to find out soon enough. A sketch artist was up here. A witness in the interview room-"

"I know, man, I know. Let's burn that bridge when we come to it," Esposito growled.

"I think you mean, cross that bridge-"

"Hell, no, I do not." He rubbed a hand over his clean-shaven head and tried not to get frustrated with his partner. "We are going to be burning some fat-ass bridges, partner. Burning. In flames. As in, our careers if we muck this up."

Ryan gulped and turned to look at the Captain's open door. "Think we should tell him now?"

"No."

"What about-"

"I said no. We tell him now, and he's got to report it up the chain of command. He's got to take steps. Internal Affairs, the mayor. Probably the city council too; I don't know. But we keep this between us, we get the chance to find evidence, Ryan. We have evidence, we don't get our asses handed to us."

The man nodded and then perked up a little bit. "The cops checking out tattoo parlors got a hit on our girl. First name Rosie. The guy didn't get a last. She's underage, so of course he swears she had a signed permission form each time, but I doubt it. Seedy looking place near the river."

Esposito chewed a mouthful of black beans slowly, turning this over in his head. "Rosie. Fifteen year old girl who gets tattoos like that, explicit tattoos, and she's got a permission form signed? Yeah, I don't think so."

"I've started narrowing down the missing persons reports, but there's still a lot to go through. And she might not have been reported, if she didn't have any kind of family support at home, you know?" Ryan took another healthy chunk of burrito and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

"Yeah. Highly unlikely someone reported this girl missing, I'm thinking. We should go back to this tattoo place and ask some questions. Might get somewhere."

"We could also canvas the neighborhood, see if any street workers or homeless were in the area and knew her. She might even be a prostitute."

Javier nodded slowly. "But first, my man, you call Castle again."

"I could call Alexis instead. See if she knows what's up with her dad?"

Esposito gave him a long, painful stare. "And why, exactly, do you have Alexis Castle's cell phone number?"

Ryan looked at him, confused. "Beyond the fact that Alexis called *me* when she couldn't get ahold of Castle, you mean? Beckett gave it to me."

Espo blinked. "Why did Beckett give it to *you*?"

Ryan blushed and smoothed his vest with a hand. "You know. Just in case."

Esposito froze. "Ah." He glanced down to his half-eaten dinner. "Right. Just in case."

Just in case, one day, both of them never came back.

* * *

><p>Rick Castle wanted more than just standing in her entryway, both of them a little shaken up, both of them needy in ways they didn't want to talk about. He wanted more than stupid presents to prove himself, more than a roll of her eye to his suggestions, more than having to guess at her feelings every last time. He wanted more than just touching her and making her sigh. He wanted more than just the opportunity or privilege of having Kate Beckett. He wanted to know. He wanted to see that she was certain in the way that he was certain.<p>

He'd told her twice now. And sure, yeah, fine, saying it once in a text message wasn't exactly romantic or appropriate, but he'd made up for it just a moment ago, hadn't he? He had said it to her twice in the same breath. He didn't expect to her hear it back; he wasn't sure he would ever hear it back, if he was honest with himself. He might never hear her say those words.

But if he could just know. If he could just see the certainty in her eyes. If he could feel her body respond without hesitance, without fail, without that sense that somehow this was wrong, that somehow he was getting away with something-

He might live.

He might just make it.

"Kate," he whispered finally, ready to explain, but she lifted a hand to press her fingers against his lips.

"Hush," she said, her own voice hoarse and low. "Don't ruin it now."

He shut up. He kissed those fingers, captured them in his hand to press another to her palm, felt those fingers curl around his cheek as he moved down to the inside of her wrist. The smooth, creamy skin of the inside of her elbow, the huff of her laughter as he tasted the curve of her shoulder, the skittering of her breath as he set his teeth against the tendons at her neck. And then she drew in a long, gasping breath as Richard Castle sucked on the spot right below her jaw where her bone angled and her skin stretched taut, her skin salty and cool.

She turned her cheek into him, sought his lips again, did her own dirty magic with her mouth and her rippling body, spreading heady joy down to his guts. He curled around her, draping over her, before she took one step back and raised up a little on her tiptoes and regained equal footing. And then her hand started to travel, and his brain was sending him faint, weakening warning signals that most of his body tried to mutinously ignore, that even his own hands were ignoring. . .

"Wait," he said, sucking in a deep breath and capturing her wrists, placing her arms around his neck so he could regain his composure. Lost cause. He settled for regaining oxygen to his brain cells instead, leaning into her even as she leaned into him.

"Wait?" she teased, her mouth hovering by his ear.

"I'm not after this," he groaned out, and slid his hands along the skin of her arms, down her sides, to settle at her waist. Safest. Hopefully.

"You're not?"

And, thank goodness he was listening, because the tone in her voice triggered other alarm bells in his head, and he had to replay what he'd said just then, listen to himself, before he figured it out.

"Well, I am. I really am after that. You. Let me be clear: you're smoking hot, Detective Beckett, and I've wanted you from the start."

He felt the grin at his ear where she still seemed to be hiding, or just on pause until he got this out of his system.

"I think you've been pretty clear on that," she said finally.

"Good. I'd hate to think I was losing my skills." He let his thumbs slide along her sides, up and down, soothing. "But I also want to be pretty clear on something else."

"Mmm?"

Oh. . .oh, she really shouldn't make that noise. Not in his ear. Not with her body pressed against him and her fingers stroking the sides of his neck, her nails combing his hair.

"Castle?" She sounded entirely pleased with herself. "You had something else you wanted to make clear?"

"Y-yes." He closed his eyes, tried not to feel, tried to bring his body back under control. He'd had three years of keeping himself in check; he should be a master at this. "I want to be clear. About this. Us. This is it for me, Kate Beckett. You're it for me. And I will do anything, do *nothing*, if it means making that absolutely clear, making you just as certain of it as me."

And then she wasn't in his arms anymore. She wasn't even standing close. She was four steps back and staring at him like he had two heads, staring at him like a cop facing down a monster with two heads: some incredulity, but grim determination to finish the job.

He swallowed over a painful lump in his throat and, just like that, his body calmed, unwound. He felt like he would need to sit down for this.

"Okay," she said. She nodded slowly. She was looking at him strangely still, but nodding. He had some small, stupid hope spark up watching her nod.

"Okay?"

"You're. . .clear."

"Oh."

She was still four steps away. Entirely too far away. She didn't look happy. She didn't look like she was going to say those three words back. She didn't even really look much different from the usual Detective Beckett.

But she did look sure. She looked pretty damn certain in fact.

Then finally, her mouth grew in a cute, girlish grin that made her cheeks round and her eyes (still careful, still quiet) begin to shine. "Thank you."

What was she thanking him for?


	9. Chapter 9

Castle's phone rang and she raised an eyebrow when he didn't answer it. "Phone, Castle."

He looked like he was having trouble breathing. But he fumbled in his jeans pocket for his phone and pulled it out. "It's Ryan. Again."

"Answer it."

He gave her an incredulous look.

"Answer it, Castle."

He sighed and answered the phone. "This better be good."

Kate turned away and headed for the kitchen and a glass of water to cool her off. She realized her hands were shaking again, and ruthlessly clenched her fists.

Castle wanted to marry her.

Oh God. She hurried to the cabinet and grabbed a glass, rooted in the freezer for ice, then ran water from the faucet. She gulped it down, closing her eyes, trying to ignore it. _Ignore it, Kate. Just don't go there. Not yet. Not now._

She pressed the glass to her forehead, realized she was panting a little. That had heated up fast; he was right to slow them down. He was right to make them stop. She had been a little overwhelmed. A lot overwhelmed. She needed to think. She'd been. . .a little thrilled by his chivalry, a lot surprised, and deeply grateful. She hated to feel grateful to him for being. . .being smart about this. For being sweet. For. . .

Castle wanted to _marry_ her.

She took another gulp of water and heard a yelp from the entryway. Then Castle was running into the kitchen with the phone pressed to his cheek. "Beckett!"

She lowered the glass, staring at him.

"There's been another murder. Like your mom's. Kate. Like your mom's."

Her mom?

He wanted to marry her.

* * *

><p>The four of them met up under the Wooden Pavilion at Belvedere Castle in Central Park. It was Castle's idea, of course. He had fun arranging the meet and pretending they were Nick and Nora Charles on the trail of a hot lead in <span>The Thin Man<span>. They got a cab outside her apartment, and Castle took her hand in the safety of the cab's dark interior, his heart expanding as she squeezed back and met his eyes.

The night was busy, as it always was in the city, but it looked untouchable, like it wasn't meant for them. He wondered if this was how Kate always felt, one step closer to finding out *why* her mother had to die that night, but always removed from the home, the city, she loved. Like Eve looking back at the Garden of Eden, seeing the flaming sword meant to keep her out, but always, always wanting a way back in.

Sometimes he forgot she lived with this. Sometimes she fooled him into thinking she was more than just okay.

They got out at 79th and took the entrance in on foot, straight over to the pond and the romantic, moonlit Belvedere Castle. They had to go through the back to approach the pavilion, and Castle got to hold her hand until the last second, when she wriggled her hand free and shoved both in her pockets. He tried not to be offended, tried not to feel rejected either.

Esposito did a chest bump, Ryan gave him the nod, while Beckett looked distinctly uncomfortable. "What's going on, guys?"

"Call came in Monday night. Body in Washington Heights. Face burned to slow down ID. 15 year old girl with distinctive tattoos."

"And?" Kate said tersely.

"She was stabbed. Just like Coonan's m.o. but obviously, it can't be Coonan."

"Could it be another killer for hire from the same Army company?" Castle asked.

Ryan and Esposito looked at each other, similar expressions of revelation on their faces. "We hadn't thought of that," Ryan said.

Esposito rocked back on his heels. "We were thinking it was the work of the person who hired Coonan. If it's a copycat, then he'd have to know the original killer. Or maybe he told Coonan how he wanted it done. Maybe they *were* Army buddies, and they came to adopt the same pattern. Either way, this is no coincidence."

Beckett had her arms crossed over her chest; she didn't look convinced. "Guys, I appreciate-"

Ryan stepped forward to interrupt her. "We were thinking, if these things connect, then we should really run down Castle's idea. So we went to NYU."

Rick's ears perked up. "You found something at the theatre department. I knew it!" He pumped his fist and pointed to Kate. "I *told* you."

Kate glared at him, gestured to Ryan for him to continue.

"Found an understudy who matched our description. He was hired to walk into the paralegal's office and deliver an envelope. That was it. He had no idea what was in it, no idea what it was about."

Kate uncrossed her arms. "And?"

"And we had him in with the sketch artist."

Castle leaned forward. "And?"

Esposito pulled out a sheet of paper, presented it to them with a look in his eyes Castle couldn't read. He glanced down to the face in the brilliant park lights, the evening air still warm, the pond murmuring just below them.

Kate sucked in a breath. "Oh God."

Castle tilted his head and blinked. "It's the Chief of Police."

And suddenly, Detective Beckett was back. "Okay, Ryan, where's our eye witness now?"

"Uh, home I guess. We didn't hold him."

"Go round him up. Get him a photo array; see if he can pick out our guy. Oh, make sure you get a picture of the Chief in his civvies. Don't want to let this one get past the four of us."

Ryan scowled. "Where am I gonna find a photo of the Chief *not* in his uniform?"

Castle pulled out his phone. "I know a photojournalist who was covering that Autism Speaks charity auction two weeks ago. The Chief was there, in a tux, not in his dress uniform. I can call her, get her to email you a photo."

He caught the sidelong look Kate threw him, felt a little better for her flare of jealousy, actually. But she shook it off and pointed to Ryan. "Get the photo from Castle's. . .friend. . .and see if our witness can finger him."

Ryan nodded. "Got it."

"Esposito. . .where are we on this girl's ID?"

"Unies found the tatt shop where she got hers done. Said her name's Rosie. Couldn't recall a last name."

"Have them canvas the area, see if any of the homeless or prostitutes knew her-"

"Already on it," Esposito said with a grin. "Should hear back from them any time now."

Beckett nodded to herself, eyes riveted to the sketch artist's rendering for a long moment. "If it looks like I had anything to do with this case, guys, it falls apart. We need solid evidence. We need to build an airtight case. And I can't have my fingerprints all over this."

Castle felt his heart plummet at the thought. This was serious. Any move on her part was going to look bad, like she was trying to orchestrate a crime or fabricate evidence. She could seriously lose her job for this, not just because of some crazy political maneuverings. But if they didn't risk it, then she might get fired anyway, and on top of that, lose her last shot at catching the guy behind her mother's murder.

Beckett looked up at Esposito. "I hate to do this, but Espo, I need you to come with me and Castle to the tattoo place. I want to lean on them for more information. If her death *is* connected to the people behind my mom's murder, then there *has* to be more to this. But it can't be me and Castle on our own." She grimaced. "We're both compromised."

"What does that mean?" Ryan asked, glancing to Castle.

Rick sighed. "They've called me before the review board." He rubbed his finger along his phone and had a sudden thought. "That reminds me. Kate, you go with Esposito. I've got a few phone calls to make. I'll call my friend first, while I'm at it, for those photos Ryan needs. Then I'll catch up to you guys later."

Beckett was looking at him funny, but she only frowned and shrugged at him. "Sure Castle. Fine. Whatever."

He knew she was a little angry with him for ditching her right now, but it was for the best. He had a few favors to call in.


	10. Chapter 10

She didn't want to admit it, but it felt wrong to be chasing down leads without Castle. Or maybe it just felt wrong to walk into a place on the job without her gun or badge and have Esposito be the one taking the lead.

Kate Beckett steeled herself and followed Javier into Abstract Black Tattoo near the river, the place surprisingly clean despite the old dentist chairs and cracked paint. She supposed the city's inspection came down pretty hard on the tattoo parlors after that tourist got blood poisoning a few years back.

At the front desk, a pixie of a girl leaned against the counter, her hair in jagged black spikes with red streaks behind her elfin ears. A ring in her nose gave her the look of a sickly bull, while the earrings in her lobes were connected with dainty silver chains. Her tank top was form-fitting, to put it nicely, and she wore black skinny jeans with huge, steel-toed black boots on her feet. She had tattoos running up her arms like sleeves. Colorful, twisted, exotic.

Esposito flashed his badge and identified himself, introducing Beckett in the same way Beckett always introduced Castle: carefully not saying that she wasn't a detective (right now), carefully not pointing it out. Espo asked for Logan Aguilar, the tattoo artist.

Pixie girl stuck out her pierced tongue and ran the barbell along her teeth while she looked Esposito up and down. Esposito glared back.

"Where's Aguilar?"

"He went on his dinner break."

"Where?"

She shrugged, but she didn't scowl or look like she was trying to resist them. She just looked bored. The place was quiet; only a few artists were working.

Kate tried again. "What's your name?"

"St Thomas."

Kate's eyebrows rose and the girl rolled her eyes. "My mom named me after the place where she got knocked up. Isn't it great?" She twirled a finger in her air and sighed. "Call me Saint."

"Saint, have you seen this girl here before? Rosie?" Beckett held out the photo of the dead girl and watched Saint's face change.

"Yeah. I've seen her. It's Logan's work." Saint shivered, but it wasn't cold.

Kate stepped closer, slowly pulled a pen out of her pocket. "There were some uniformed officers in here earlier, asking about Rosie. We didn't get a whole lot of information, so Esposito and I came back. We want to know anything you can think of about her, even if it doesn't seem important."

The good cop approach seemed to work on Saint, because her shoulders slumped and she sat back on a stool behind the counter, tapping her long purple nails against the glass. "Rosie's. . .was. . .a hired girl. I think 15, but I could be wrong. I started working here just last summer, and she was already inked, you know? Already. . .like that."

"Like what?" Kate leaned against the counter herself while Esposito quietly faded into the background. Kate knew that as soon as Saint got talking, her partner would be casually strolling through the establishment asking his own questions. "Like what, Saint?"

"Like. . .a whore. I mean-" Saint rushed on. "Not to speak ill of the dead. But she was always crazy. I guess she'd been doing this since she was little. Like maybe her mom sold her to her pimp to get drugs. I think that might even be the story she told. Anyway, she tried to bribe the artists here to get work done. Aguilar don't go for that. He kicks out any artist who doesn't abide by his rules."

"She tried to perform sexual favors in exchange for tattoos?" Kate dug in her pocket for paper, cursing herself for thinking she was done with the tools of her trade, that she'd not need a notepad and pen just like she couldn't carry a badge and gun.

"Yeah." Saint shrugged her shoulders like she had to get out from under that image. "It got so bad that Aggy started inking her himself. He didn't want no one else even touching her. She was homeless, most of the time, you know, and she was dirty. He did it for free, to get her to stay at the shop for awhile and clean herself up. So she'd come here whenever she'd been beat or couldn't get food."

"Logan Aguilar housed Rosie for awhile then? Here?"

"Not housed. You can't house a wild thing like her. I think she was born on the streets."

"So he let her come in and get warm, get food, get cleaned up."

"Yeah."

"And then?"

"Then Aggy would put a new one on her. They were disgusting."

"I've heard," Kate murmured, making notes on a scrap of paper she'd found in her back pocket. She turned it over and read:

_XOXOXO Castle_.

Her chest tightened; she crossed her pen through the words and resumed writing as Saint kept talking. Beckett didn't have time to wonder when he'd slipped that into her jeans.

"She didn't seem to even care. Those tattoos were like X's on a calendar or something, like she was marking off the days."

"Until what, do you know?"

Saint shook her head. "Me and her had a few run-ins. I take the subway here every morning and sometimes she'd be sleeping in the doorway. I have to unlock the gate, pull it up alone, and here's this girl trying to attack me-"

"Attack you?"

"She'd take my bag, rifle through it looking for money or clothes or something she could use. It got so bad recently that Aggy started opening up with me. He's the only one who can get her to calm down. Could get her. . .wow. She's really dead?"

Kate sighed. "Yes."

Saint didn't seem to be concerned, or even surprised, just finally touched, because it had happened to someone she knew.

Esposito came back around and jerked his head at the door. Time to go. Kate said thanks to Saint and followed him back outside into the dark night. The wind had picked up again, shaking warmth from the earth and leaving her a little breathless. She felt Castle's note between her fingers.

"What've you got?" she asked.

"Logan Aguilar has another place across town. But he came in the back while you were talking to Goth girl. Logan says the girl got inked for free. Says she mostly worked the corner about five blocks over and slept in the street, serviced guys in alleys or cars. Not really a classy prostitute, so no hotel rooms or anything. I'm thinking she witnessed something."

"No evidence." Kate shrugged. "She could've just blackmailed the wrong person." She glanced at her father's watch. "Anything else? Did he know of any regulars?"

"I asked him all that. He thought maybe she hadn't had regulars for awhile now. She'd been eating less, he said; she'd been coming around his place more often for food, not ink. He said she'd been gone for two weeks, and then showed up here again about five days before she died, looking like death warmed over."

"His words?" Kate said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah. His words. I asked, Did she looked worked over? And he said no. Just like she'd been. . .hiding for a few weeks, and desperation drove her out into the daylight again."

"So you might be right," Kate said slowly. "She witnessed something and was scared. Hiding."

"I showed Aguilar the sketch. He said maybe he's seen a guy like that down here, but he can't be sure. Says it's not exactly right, but it could be familiar."

"Shoot, he could just be recognizing a famous face," Kate muttered.

Esposito nodded, and fished his phone out of his pocket. "It's Ryan," he said and thumbed it on. "Yo."

She watched Esposito for a moment, then felt her own phone vibrate. She smiled to see the display. "Beckett."

"Hey there," he said, something warm and sexy in his voice.

Her heart flipped over. "Castle," she warned.

"Yeah, it's me. Done making phone calls and calling in favors." Favors? "Where can I meet you?"

"Esposito's talking with Ryan, give me a second." Kate put a hand over her phone and turned to the other detective. She snagged his sleeve to get his attention.

Esposito was already hanging up, a strange look on his face.

"What?" she asked, her heart slowing. "What?"

"Kate?" from her phone, his voice still rich even across the digital distance.

"Esposito-"

"Ryan took the photo array to Almond Bradley. He couldn't pick him out."

"What?" She felt like she'd slammed into a wall.

"Bradley says it's not our guy. In fact, he specifically said that the Chief was close, but that the shape of his head was wrong." Esposito gave her an incredulous look.

"Kate?"

She heard his voice again suddenly in her ear. "Sorry, Castle. I'm here. Look, head back to my place. We'll all meet up there."

Esposito dug out his keys. "Back to square one."


	11. Chapter 11

The four of them huddled over the coffee table, trying to organize the information they'd collected. "We need a murder board," Castle whined.

"I've got index cards," she said and handed them around the table. "We can tape them on the wall. It'll have to do for now."

Castle glanced over his shoulder at the shutters on her window. "Shutters still full?"

She cast him a glare.

"You plan on telling us who it was you were calling while the rest of us worked?" Esposito smirked, punching Castle's shoulder.

"Just. . .trying to get things wrapped up for tomorrow."

"What's tomorrow?" Ryan asked.

Kate glanced at him; he nodded for her to let them in on it. "He's been called to testify before the review board."

"Oh." Ryan glanced between them, then to Esposito. "So were we."

"Again?" Kate shot Ryan a startled look. "You went Monday, right after me."

Esposito nodded. "They're calling us back for additional questioning." He shrugged. "Didn't give us any more than that."

Castle reached over and put his hand on Kate's knee under the coffee table. He wasn't trying to hide it, but he also didn't think she'd appreciate him publicly claiming her in front of the boys. "Don't worry. I think this could actually be a good thing."

She frowned at him but didn't shrug his hand off her knee. "Let's just focus on the murdered girl. Ryan, tell us about the photo array."

"Here's exactly what I showed him," Ryan said, pulling the photos out of a manilla envelope on the table. He fanned the photos, but Castle reached out to spread them furher apart, getting a better look.

"That's a good shot. If it had been the Chief, I think your witnes would've recognized him, don't you?"

Ryan nodded. "I think so. I even had a couple extra shots of the Chief that I slipped in throughout the stack, hoping that a different pose or angle would be better. But Bradley has a good eye. He got the details so clear because he's usually an understudy who ends up doing costuming."

Rick shuffled through the photos and then shook his head. "I think we're looking at this all wrong. The sketch artist drew a guy who just looked like the Chief, so we assumed it was the Chief. But think about it. Why would the Chief of Police hire an actor to leak fake question to the review board? He should know better than that."

Kate glanced up at him, her brow furrowing. "He *does* know better than that. He'd know that we'd find him eventually."

"So it wasn't the Chief. We got lucky because our witness pays more attention to the details than most people do. But our killer? The guy who's behind this? He's thorough. He's been setting up the Chief this whole time. Remember when we first discovered there were fake questions? Who was the person who hand-delivered those questions to the Captain?"

Esposito growled. "The Chief of Police. Damn, this guy's good."

Castle felt that glow when the elements of his plot started to come together. "He only made it *look* like it was the Chief. He could be about the same age; he alters his appearance just a little. What's most noticeable about the Chief? That white hair, right? So he dyes his hair white, gets it styled just right, and voila. Suddenly he's close enough to look like the Chief, close enough to throw us off. Close enough to give a jury something to think about too. Would've worked too, if it hadn't been for your witness's eye for detail."

Kate picked up the sketch and glared at it. "The Chief got the questions first so we'd already be suspicious of him. Once you wonder about someone, you always end up wondering-especially if you never find proof one way or another. So he's already suspect in our minds, and then we find the actor and he describes someone who looks like the Chief and we jump to conclusions."

Castle nodded, squeezing her knee under the table to get her attention. "But the Chief. . .he could still be involved in this."

Ryan snorted. "How do you figure that?"

"Think about what you said. The second you got this case, the Chief was in Montgomery's office asking about it. He came over to you two specifically to see where you were on it. Why would he do that?"

"At the time, it felt like he knew something. It felt like he was nervous, actually." Esposito admitted. "Dude, remember? He looked absolutely freaked."

Castle rubbed a finger over Kate's knee, almost absent-mindedly, looking again at the 15 year old girl who had died. "Her death was a message to him. Her death was a threat."

Kate sucked in a breath, shifted her knee away from him, then drawing her knee to her chest, permanently out of his reach. "The Chief knows who it is. He *knows* who's behind my mother's murder."

Castle nodded grimly, putting his hand back on the floor. "And whoever it is, he wants to remind the Chief that he's out there. He's in charge. And what happens to people who get in his way? They're taken out."

* * *

><p>In her kitchen, Kate poured a new glass of water, wishing she had a nice glass of red wine instead. But this was not the time for that, and she hadn't eaten enough today to really be up for it either. She heard Castle behind her and turned around.<p>

"Are you going to tell me what you're planning?" she asked, staring him down.

Castle had the grace to wince, but he didn't look like he was spilling his secrets any time soon. "Just getting some advice from my lawyer on tomorrow's review board."

"Castle," she warned, squeezing the glass in her hand too tightly. "I told you: tell the truth. Answer the questions-"

"I know; I will. Don't worry, Kate. I got this."

"Castle, this isn't a game," she hissed, stepping closer to him but leaving her glass on the counter. She was afraid she'd break it. "You need to listen to me-"

"And you need to trust me, Detective." He reached up and touched a spot on her neck, smoothing his finger down her skin. "You've got this vein that pulses when you're angry." Then he leaned in and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her neck, his teeth scraping, his tongue soothing.

She put a hand up to his cheek to push him away and instead found herself curling her fingers around his ear, tugging him closer. The sink was at her back; she could hear the boys arguing over what to put on the notecards they were using to recreate a murder board.

Castle nuzzled the skin behind her ear, grazed his teeth along her lobe so that she couldn't breathe. Dizzy, suddenly too warm, she broke away from him, closing her eyes. After a moment, she felt his lips press a chaste kiss to her forehead. "Just trust me, Kate. Tomorrow will be fine. Don't worry."

She realized she still had a hand at his cheek and drew away, making a fist and pressing it to her chest. "It's not me I'm worried about, Castle. It's you. Whoever this guy is, he murdered a 15 year old prostitute and burned her face off just to send the Chief of Police a message. He murdered my mother, who was a prominent defense lawyer, along with organizing the kidnapping of mobsters, Castle. This is not a guy to mes with."

"I know that. And yet you keep messing with him." He was grinning, like he hadn't even heard her. "If you're here, I'm here."

"Castle, sometimes you just have to walk away. Sometimes it's not worth it."

"Is it worth it to you?" he asked, taking her hand from her chest and pressing it to his own. "It is. I can see it in your face. You want this guy."

"It's worth it to me, but Castle. . .it can't be worth it to you. I am not telling Alexis that I got her dad killed."

"You won't have to," he said, looping his free arm around her waist and tugging her closer.

She resisted. "Stop, Rick." She glared at him, took a step back to make him get it, make him finally get it. "I want you to go home. I want you to get some sleep. Go to the hearing tomorrow and tell the truth. And that's it, Castle. No master plan. Nothing fancy. No theatrics. It's going to get you killed."

He wasn't grinning anymore, but he did seem to think she was being ridiculous. He shook his head and tried to step closer to her. Kate sidestepped him and moved to put the table between them.

"Kate."

"I'm serious about this. I don't want you on this one. This is our jobs, but this isn't-"

"Don't give me that crap, Kate. I'm on this. We're partners. Always, Kate." He took two giant strides around the table and captured her against him, his face twisted into a fierce look of possession, then punished her with his mouth. He didn't relent, didn't let up; she was drowning in him.

"You guys want to share with the class?"

She broke away from Castle, wiping her mouth, to find Esposito and Ryan in the doorway, both of them smirking.

"No." she said, at the same time that Castle grinned and said-

"Yes."


	12. Chapter 12

"Would you two stop smirking?"

Castle glanced over at the three of them still clustered around the coffee table, Esposito and Ryan barely able to contain themselves.

"You, too, Castle," she snarled, giving him a heated look that did absolutely nothing to wipe the smirk off his face. If she was going for admonition, she'd missed it by a mile. That look was closer to sex-on-fire than censure.

He faced the brick wall again like a good boy and kept taping up index cards. The timeline was still woefully empty, but they at least had filled out some background detail on Rosie, her habits and hangouts. They had the two sketches, one of which had let straight to Almond Bradley, the other, from Bradley, which implicated the Chief but was not the Chief. That, in itself, was also important.

He paused in his duties to glance back at Kate again. She was reading the ME's report from Lanie, comparing it against the reports from her mother's case. Castle still wasn't sure how Kate could read that stuff, over and over, knowing it was her own mother, knowing the life behind all that death.

She was strong. She was stronger than him, and yet, somehow, he'd managed to. . bend her? Or had she just unleashed the force of that strength, finally, into this thing with him? He really doubted that Kate Beckett would just *let* someone kiss her. Kate Beckett wanted him to kiss her. Wanted him, period.

"Castle, what have I said about staring?" she said suddenly, not raising her eyes from the reports.

He turned back around. Studied the wall for a moment, trying to erase the picture of her hair falling over shoulder, the faint blush still in her cheeks.

Logan Aguilar and the girl, Saint, had given them most of their working knowledge of the 15 year old prostitute, but it still didn't give them why. Why had the sleeping dragon awakened? Why had he struck this girl?

To send the Chief a message.

"Why did the Chief need to be sent a message?" he mused.

"What are mumbling over there?" Esposito called out.

He spun around, the masking tape on his wrist, an index card in hand. "Why did the Chief need to be sent a message? Why do crime bosses put the heads of favorite horses into bed-"

"Castle." Kate threw him another glance, this one something easier to read: _Get on with it_.

"Because the Chief wasn't toeing the line. The Chief was rebelling, in some way we don't know yet."

"I'll buy that," Esposito said.

"Could be anything, though," Ryan added. "Stopped paying bribe money, stopped passing on information, passed worthless information, started up a competing business-"

"Right. Anything. Got it." Castle frowned. "But this isn't some crime boss. This is a dragon remember? That's how McCallister put it. He said he didn't want to wake a sleeping dragon. He's not just some low-level crime boss. And his chosen killer, Coonan, that guy was smuggling heroin in from Afghanistan. That takes connections, that takes deep pockets-"

"So it's not the Westies," Beckett interrupts. "We know it's not just some gangland hit. My mother was going to file an appeal for Pulgatti, so someone didn't want that case came back to light. Not just McCallister and Raglan. . ."

"Someone else." Castle crossed to the wall and tapped the second sketch. "The third man in that van, the one who orchestrated those kidnappings twenty years ago."

Esposito gave a low whistle. "Not just connections, you gotta have balls to go after the mobsters in this city. Crime syndicates have a long memory. You don't just get away clean doing something like that."

"Not unless you're a dragon. So let's build theory around these things," Castle said, scribbling on an index card: The Third Man.

"Makes sense," Kate said slowly, standing up to come closer. "But let's call him The Dragon. McCallister called him that, and we don't know for sure that the third man is the same as the dragon. That's just assumption."

"A likely assumption," he grumbled, but crossed it out and wrote Dragon.

"So we've got this Dragon. First, ordered the hit on my mom."

Castle pulled out another index card and scribbled it down, while Kate peeled a piece of tape off the roll on his wrist. She stuck it to the wall under the Dragon.

"Dick Coonan was our first shooter." Her voice was quiet, but firm.

Castle kept up with her, handing her another index card and adding. "Had Raglan shot cause he was talking to you."

She nodded, added that as well to the circle of cards around the Dragon. "Shooter: John Doe. In lock-up."

He gave her a look, passed over the card. He was definitely coming back to that later; the small, insignificant fact that she'd been going out to Sing Sing almost every other week to have a go at the professional killer. But not right now.

Ryan stood up from the coffee table as well. "Has anything strange happened to our shooter in Sing Sing?"

Kate shook her head. "Nope. And that, actually, *is* strange. But guys won't touch him."

Ryan nodded. "So he's protected then. Well-protected."

Castle wrote: Protects Doe in prison? and slapped that index card on Kate's hand with a grin. "See? We've got a lot more than we thought."

Kate sighed and shook her head. "But we have very few facts. The rest are suppositions. Dragon might or might not have had Rosie killed. In a manner suggesting Coonan's preferred method of operation. Dragon might or might not have been sending someone a message, or just getting rid of a witness-"

Esposito's phone rang loudly; he cursed and fished it out of his pocket, answering it and walking towards the kitchen for privacy.

"Dragon might or might not have the Chief on his payroll," Ryan added. His face was pale. "This is serious, Beckett. We go in to the Captain with this and he's gonna have a fit. There's nothing here. No real evidence. All just. . ."

"Speculation," Castle finished, sighing as well.

Esposito came back into the living room with a grim look on his face. "That was central booking. They had a voluntary confession from a homeless dude they picked up for panhandling."

"Shit," Kate said.

Castle didn't get it. "So."

"Homeless guy says he killed Rosie. With an Army-issue knife."

Oh. There went their case.


	13. Chapter 13

Esposito and Ryan left immediately to interrogate the homeless man the uniforms had picked up. Their improvised murder board was half taped to the brick wall, and Rick was slumped in the chair, staring at his hands.

Kate rubbed her eyes and tried not to feel defeated. A homeless man. She knew he had to have been paid off, or threatened, or promised something. No way a homeless guy made those stab wounds, in that pattern, just like an Army-bred hired killer had done. No way. But she had no way of proving it. None at all.

"What am I going to do?" she said softly.

Castle looked up at her, seemed to realize they were all alone. "Tomorrow, I've got to appear at the review board. But I could. . .I could just not show up. They didn't serve me the papers in person, just left the summons with my mother. You and I could go-"

"Castle," she sighed. "You'd have to come back sometime." And then she saw the look on his face and hastily amended her words. "We'd have to come back. I want to keep my job. I don't want to not be a cop, Castle."

He looked at her like he was debating his next heartfelt words. She wished he'd stop talking, stop trying to convince her. She was convinced. She'd been convinced last year too, and he'd. . .

Kate sighed and stood up, moving away from the living room, from Castle's nonstop confessions. He'd been crowding her ever since-

Well. That was her own fault. She'd invited him over. The orchids sitting on her kitchen table were a reminder of that. The daisies she'd surely kill. The calla lilies, so pristine and elegant, so strong. . .he'd given her all of that in an effort to make sure she knew that he was there. She knew. She'd known all along.

"Castle." She yelled over her shoulder from the kitchen, staring at the orchids. Round, tiger faces in purple, blooming from thin stalks, long thick leaves like green tongues. The blooms were so heavy that the florist had tied them to brown sticks that were disguised as bare branches sprouting from the base. There was a feathered miniature bird tied to a branch, a nest just below him.

Castle had come into the kitchen behind her.

The orchids were so heavy, they couldn't keep their own heads up. So heavy. Kate was an orchid, so heavy, so weighed down. She had never known her adult life without her mother's murder weighing her down. She had never not been a woman broken, as Castle had seen her that first case. She wondered what she would have been like if her mother was still alive. A father without a drinking problem. A mother with definite opinions on her daughter's life.

Who was that lost Kate Beckett? Not a cop. Not a woman on hold, a woman waiting for resolution, a woman without. Would Castle love that woman better? Would he not even know her? Would she be more worthy?

She was so tired of being trapped alone in this. Just when she thought she'd gotten somewhere, it was one more dead end. Just when she thought she'd been given answers, they were snatched away from her. Now that Castle had helped bring some light to her mother's case, she was getting her whole career taken from her. She was tired of being stuck in it, of her head drooping. She needed a strong stick to hold her up.

"I don't want to do this," she said softly and turned around to face him, really look at him now.

He was wearing that carefully blank face, those carefully neutral eyes, but she detected two things there that surprised her: acceptance and distraction. He had heard her, and he was going to let it be her last word. And the distraction? He wanted to be somewhere else.

Her spine stiffened but she refused to let herself run, refused to step back from him. "I don't want to do this any more."

Castle dropped his hands (he'd been about to touch her), and took a step back, took the first step back, startling her even more. "All right." His eyes wouldn't meet hers.

She didn't understand him. Why was he not. . .why was he not reaching for her? Why did it look like he was going to leave? What happened to being partners? What happened to beautiful notes slipped into her pocket to make her smile? Why did it look like he was going to leave her alone again?

Because he was. He was turning around and walking toward her door.

"Castle?"

He turned once and gave her a pained half-smile. "Let's just get through tomorrow, Kate. Okay? I don't want to have this conversation tonight. I can't. I just. . .I can't."

She was bewildered. So surprised that she didn't even get a chance to stop him before he was walking out the door.

* * *

><p>Castle had drifted between excitement over his plan for the review board and abject despair over Kate Beckett's sudden rejection of him.<p>

_I don't want to do this,_ she'd said.

He almost couldn't believe it. But this was Kate Beckett. This was what she did. So he begged her to sleep on it, give it a day, and he went home to instigate phase one of Save Detective Beckett.

Which is why his friend, Alex, was accompanying him into the review board this morning.

"Who are you?" Gail Connors asked, staring at the man Rick Castle had escorted inside the chamber. The review board was set up in a round conference hall, much like a lecture hall in college, and the witness chair was down at the bottom, crowded and cramped. The conference hall was imposing.

"My name is Alex Banks. I am Mr. Castle's personal attorney."

Gail gave Rick a sharp look, as if she was disappointed in him. Why? He had warned her that this was merely a thinly-veiled attempt to railroad Kate Beckett. He had told her he wouldn't be a party to it.

The city council members were arrayed across the hall. Nameplates in front of their smug, arrogant faces. Castle was actually surprised by the level of intimidation employed in this review board, by the amount of hostility present in the room. He saw a Gordon Franklin giving him the evil eye.

From her raised position near the top of the lecture hall-style conference room, Gail leaned in close to the microphone in front of her. "Mr. Castle, you do know that this is a review board, not a court hearing? An attorney isn't necessary."

Banks took over. "As an official consultant to the NYPD, Mr. Castle is invoking a option 3C in the State of New York's Rules of Procedure, Section 332, which states that all government employees may have their union representative present, and if no union representative is available, the employee-whether full-time or part-time, permanent or seasonal-may request a licensed advocate to be present on his behalf."

Banks turned to Rick and nodded once. Rick leaned forward into the microphone, almost putting his lips on it, and lifted his eyes to look up through his lashes. "I request that my attorney, Alex Banks, serve as my advocate."

Banks turned back to the review board. "I hereby offer copies of my license for further review to the members of this council."

Gail, giving Castle a death stare, waved off the attorney. "That won't be nec-"

"Yes, thank you," Franklin interrupted. "Please enter it into the record." The man's face was florid and wide, like a yellowing bullfrog.

There was a long, hushed pause as Banks passed the information to the review board's secretary of minutes, who in turn presented it to the members of the board for approval. When it got to Franklin, the man looked at everything long and hard, but could find no complaint.

When that was done, Banks began again. "Due to the nature of Mr. Castle's consultation, and the great number of cases Mr. Castle has consulted on, I felt, as his attorney, that it best represented his interests to invoke Clause 87 of the Rules of Procedure, which states that a deposition may be filed with the Review Board in lieu of a verbal testimony, so long as the deposition is entered into the record. I hereby offer copies of Mr. Castle's deposition, signed by the proper authorities and notified by a notary public, for further review to the members of this council."

Rick was pleased to see there was definitely, most definitely, grumbling going on now. He didn't smile, that would be sure to infuriate them, but he did privately gloat.

Connors put a hand over her mic and listened to the man on her right, Kovacevic, whisper something into her ear. After a minute, she waved him off and turned back to the board. "Mr. Castle, this is a review board whose sole purpose is to determine the nature of your consultation with the NYPD. Were you to submit a deposition, that would deny the review board of doing its intended purpose-to review."

Banks jumped in the second Gail paused. "Mr. Castle's fifth amendment rights cannot be superseded by the subjective needs of the New York City Council. Mr. Castle has optioned to present a deposition in lieu of a verbal testimony so as to retain his fifth amendment rights. Failure by this council to accept such a deposition shows a disregard for the United States federal legal system and a disregard for the great state of New York's private citizens, as well as ignoring the Rules of Procedure to which this council says it adheres."

More buzz. Castle was proud of Alex Banks; the man must have spent all night on this, familiarizing himself with the City Council's Rules of Procedure and all that. He knew he'd be paying the man for it, of course, but this was well worth the exorbitant hourly rate. Well worth leaving Kate without much of an explanation to go write that deposition all night, seeing a notary at four a.m. this morning, and getting all his ducks in a row.

He wished Beckett were in here now to see this.

Finally, the review board grudgingly accepted his written deposition into the record and copies were passed around to everyone.

Franklin wasn't ready to give up though. "Mr. Castle, we accept the deposition, but there are elements we intend to understand more thoroughly that are not covered by your deposition."

"Again," Banks butted in. "Mr. Castle has provided you answers to every question published in the Review Board's Agenda, as required by the Rules of Procedure. Are you, Mr. Franklin, telling me that there are additional questions not published in the Agenda? Because that would be a direct violation of the Rules of Procedure, and this Review Board would have to be adjourned."

Franklin looked entirely pissed. "Mr. Castle, on the evening of March 29, 2010, do you recall entering the property at 781 Westlake with Detective Katherine Beckett?"

Castle glanced down at the sheaf of papers his attorney had placed in front of him. He scanned it quickly and found his answer. "Please refer to the document entered into the record as Deposition 1, page 6."

Franklin glared at him, ignoring the deposition. "Mr. Castle, when you entered the property, did you or did you not receive a weapon from Detective Beckett." It wasn't even said like a question.

Castle glanced at his cheat sheet once more, then said, "Please refer to the document entered into the record as Deposition 1, page 13."

Yeah, he'd written a hell of a long deposition, thoroughly answering every published question as he gave a rambling story of their time the week of March 29, 2010. That was the case in which Nikki Heat had inspired a serial killer, Scott Dunn, to take up Kate Beckett as the focus of his taunting kill spree. Dunn had eventually kidnapped Agent Jordan Shaw to lure Beckett into a trap. Castle had discovered his whereabouts, and he and Kate had entered the building after him.

When Kate had handed him her service weapon, he knew they were in very serious danger. She knew he took regular courses on the weapons range, knew that he was an accurate shot, so it wasn't like she was giving a gun to some five year old.

Still. He saw where it might look bad. So of course, he'd scrambled to find a way to avoid this review board. Thus, Banks. The guy was a legal stud.

"Mr. Castle, did you aim that weapon at the suspect, Mr. Scott Dunn after Detective Beckett was overwhelmed?"

"Please refer to the document entered into the record as Deposition 1, page 21."

Castle sat back and prepared to enjoy himself.


	14. Chapter 14

Kate spent all night trying to figure out what happened to Castle.

She wasn't a drama queen. She wasn't clingy. She was fairly level-headed and sometimes obstinately rational. Where other women got crazy or bitchy, she didn't. Not since her mother's death anyway. It just didn't ever seem important enough in the grand scheme of things. Her mother's death had made a lot of things seem vain.

So she wasn't exactly climbing the walls when Castle walked out. She had that first moment's startled panic, but then her rational, detective's brain kicked in.

He had a trying morning ahead of him tomorrow. He had already told her, in no uncertain terms, that he wanted her and he wanted something real with her. He might not have asked her to marry him, but it looked like that was only because he felt he should leave it up to Kate. _Good plan, Castle_.

She sometimes had trouble trusting in relationships. She knew that. She knew why too. But this wasn't one of those cases. When he had walked out, it had hurt. And her hurt and confusion had come because his reaction seemed completely out of proportion to her own distress moment's before. She had just told him she wished she could stop feeling so burdened by her mother's death, and he had looked like she'd inflicted a mortal wound.

She was still lost on that one, no matter how she looked at it. Maybe he had some irrational belief that Kate's feelings were predicated on their ability to work a case. But that was stupid. Not that Castle couldn't be stupid. It just seemed ridiculous even for Castle.

She knew Castle would be back, even if it was despite himself. Even if it was in his best interest *not* to be back. He'd still come back. Partners.

That helped a little. Didn't make her suddenly understand what had gone on between them, but it allowed her a measure of breathing room. Enough so that when the morning light woke her at six, she had slept with only minimal nightmares haunting her night.

Just the usual. Which she could handle. Shooting the wrong people. Coonan coming back from his grave to mock her with bloodied words. Her mother's disappointment. All the same. Nothing extra special.

She showered quickly, didn't bother to blow dry her hair. It would get too wavy and be tangled in an hour's time, but she pulled a rubber band from her makeup drawer and snapped it around her wrist for later. Makeup came on slowly; she took extra care. She added a heavy line to her eyelids, letting it slant upwards at the outside. It was her favorite look, added something exotic to her eyes. A grey-green eye shadow combination. Faint hint of blush.

She realized she was taking extra care because of him and sighed, staring herself down in the mirror. She looked composed, but also willing. She accepted it and moved on.

In her closet, she pulled on a dress shirt in pink and grey tones. Grey dress pants. Heels. She pulled the chain out of its box and lifted her mother's ring over her head and let it fall under her shirt. Her father's watch went on next, bulky on her wrist bone. She felt heavy rather than battle-ready, due to her missing gun and badge. Was this what it was like to be a civilian? Still weighed down with tragedies, but without the reassurance of purpose, without the ability to effect justice?

Kate checked her reflection and felt at least put-together, if not completely satisfied. She didn't stop long enough for breakfast, just grabbed toast and her wallet, keys, phone. She locked the door behind her and headed for the subway, finishing off her toast. She was jostled by the early morning commute, but she made her way with limited frustration, secured a spot just before the doors closed, and leaned into the pole as she held on. She kept her wallet tucked against her chest, her phone in its snapped pocket, keys dangling from the key ring looped through one end.

To her left, a crazy woman was muttering to herself with stringy hair and a shopping bag. Kate closed her eyes and put her forehead to the pole, thought better of it, and instead let the sway of the subway car rock her, if somewhat violently, into a trance. She was thinking about Castle. She was remembering the look on his face as he left. She was feeling again the edge of the scrap of paper in her pocket with his note on it in a blocky scrawl. Her shoulders straightened a little, her eyes opened.

By the time she got to the capitol building, the review board had been underway for twenty minutes. Kate hadn't let Castle attend her own interrogation because she'd been afraid of what he might read into it, of how her answers might either hurt him or, alternately, feed his ego. She didn't want him to have to listen to her honest opinion of him. Sadly, the review board was mostly about her, and far, far less about Castle's position as consultant. Which made her especially glad she hadn't let him come in with her; she was glad he'd not witnessed that thorough and humiliating rebuke.

But she was going to Castle's. She made her way to the upper gallery and showed her ID to the guard posted in the hall, then had to show her ID again to the guard outside the gallery doors. She slipped in as quietly as possible and found herself just above Castle's position at witness table, far above his head. A man was sitting next to him, feeding him sheets of paper. Castle was reading from them.

The panel of council members looked thoroughly pissed. She remembered Franklin and picked him out of the faces before her; he was scratching notes to his aide sitting just behind him. The aide passed it on again, and some gopher scurried out of his chair and through the back doors. Franklin stopped to ask another question and Castle leaned in to answer.

"Please refer to the document entered into the record as Deposition 1, page 39."

Kate blinked in surprise and leaned forward on her elbows to see more of him. Just the top of head, the wide length of his shoulders. Before him, a collection of type-written notes. Pages were rustling among the city council members and she lifted her head to watch. They were flipping through a stapled document, scanning the text.

Deposition 1. That's what he had said. Deposition 1.

As she listened, the man beside Rick leaned in and whispered something, Rick nodded, and the man leaned toward the mic.

"Mr. Castle has instructed me, as his advocate, to politely submit to this Review Board, in due deference to the Rules of Procedure, a movement to bring his testimony to a close. Again. Mr. Castle has fulfilled his obligations to the Review Board, as I stated before, by entering into record his lawfully notarized Deposition, which you see covers every question from the published schedule."

Oh. _Oh_.

Richard Castle had completely blocked the city council by turning in a written report. He had taken control of his testimony away from the people who were trying to get her fired, and he had done it all completely legally. He didn't even need to lie.

That's what he'd been doing last night. Saving her. With words. As always.

She pulled her phone out and texted him, quickly, her heart pounding. She sent it, breathless, waiting for it to go through.

Kate saw him startle, then reach for his phone in his pocket. She knew the moment he read it, because his face broke open into the widest, most beautiful smile, a smile he couldn't stop, and his hands were tight around his phone.

She had texted him:

_I love you too_.


	15. Chapter 15

When Castle finally was allowed to leave, he walked out behind his lawyer, Alex Banks, with a smirk playing on his face. And he knew it too. Franklin, the ass-hat, had blustered his way through five different sections of the Rules of Procedure (which Castle hadn't read himself, of course) trying to get around Castle's deposition, but to no avail. Banks had done his homework.

Castle shook his friend's hand. "I owe you. Big time."

"You'll get a bill. And yeah," he grinned. "It's big time."

The separated in the hallway, Banks heading towards the parking garage while Castle made for the lobby atrium with its state seal and marble floors. Castle felt good. He felt better than good. He felt like he'd just conquered Goliath. And won the girl in the process. It was a new feeling for him. He wasn't often the little guy, not since the bestsellers and the money and the women falling all over themselves to land the white whale. Fighting for something, fighting hard, felt good. It felt great actually, like the cave man dragging the woman into his lair by the hair.

The woman who was waiting for him in the atrium, apparently. He'd have to correct that vision though; no way in hell would Kate Beckett let him drag her anywhere, let alone to his lair. She stood remote, the sunlight from the high windows just touching her hair with gold, her back to him as she studied the the security checkpoint she had perhaps just passed through. Looking for flaws, maybe. He'd seen her mentally critique security systems before. She looked bold and hesitant at the same time. As if she was projecting an illusion for everyone to believe, but Castle himself could see right through it.

He watched her for a moment, overcome, struck by a feeling he had no name for. A feeling similar to the one he'd felt when he held Alexis for the first time, but layered with history and nuanced by awareness. It was a feeling that insisted he claim her (more cave man), even while admitting that she possessed him.

He walked through the lobby towards her, unable to resist, and watched her turn to meet him, dreading that first contact with her eyes, breathless for a first look at her face; he was strumming with hope. Dark and luminous eyes, a paradox of a gaze, Kate Beckett only watched him approach with something like clarity.

He could live with that. If she was certain of her text message, he could live with never hearing it pass her lips. He could *make* himself okay with that.

Rick stopped only when his fingers brushed against hers, hooking their pinkies together. She quirked an eyebrow at him but said nothing. He could do that too; he could stand here all day watching the way the light touched her cheek, try to come up with the perfect way to describe the feeling dragging at his guts, words for a future chapter.

Finally, "Quite the show in there, Castle."

He gave her a pleased grin. "You were in there."

She nodded. "Upper gallery."

"How much did you catch?"

"Most of it." She wriggled her pinkie so that his hand swung a little. "That what you were doing all last night?"

He thought he could detect some pointedness to that exchange, some actual meat, but he wasn't sure what it was about. And it didn't matter right now, because he saw, over Kate's shoulder, what he'd come out to the atrium to find.

"That, and this-" Castle stepped past her, using just that tenuous hold on her pinkie finger to compel her to turn and face Agent Jordan Shaw.

Kate was so startled she took a step back, dropped his hand. "Jordan."

The red-haired FBI profiler gave Kate a grin that turned sly when she regarded Castle. She turned then and gestured at someone still coming through lobby security: a dark haired man about six inches taller than Jordan, and a little girl darting ahead of him.

"Kate," Jordan said. "Rick. I want you to meet my husband, Robert, and my daughter, Kinsey." Handshakes went all around; he noticed that Jordan initiated a hug with Kate that the detective was stiff with, but accepting of. Of course, Castle hugged Jordan as well, so thrilled she was here, and shook her husband's hand with an acknowledging nod of his head.

Then Castle leaned over and met Kinsey's eye. "Nice to meet you, Kinsey." At his left, he heard Kate murmuring to Jordan, still stunned.

"Your mom is awesome." Castle gave the girl a hand for a high-five.

Kinsey grinned widely, slapped his palm, and showed her missing front tooth, freckles across her nose. "I know."

Kate, now that she was over her shock, was saying, "Why are you here? Not that I'm not glad to see you, meet your family, but-"

"Castle said you were in some trouble over the Dunn case." Jordan said, and then gestured to her husband with a look.

Robert shook Castle's hand once more and smiled. "Nice meeting you. After this, we should go out for lunch. Come along with me, rabbit." He took Kinsey's hand and led her off down the hall with some excuse about a bathroom. Castle didn't hear it all, but he got a shocking sensation of deja vu. Could you get deja vu for something that hadn't happened yet? That would be him. In ten years' time. Five maybe if he pushed it. Leading their child off so mommy could talk shop. It made him want to tag along after Kinsey, just to see, just to recapture that moment that stilled filled his chest with certainty.

Jordan crossed her arms over her chest with a stern look. "You should have called me the moment this came up."

"I didn't know it would come up," Kate said, her mouth twisting into a grimace. "A few weeks ago it was just an inquiry into Castle's role on the team. I thought, worst case scenario would be they curtail Rick's movements, tell us he can't come with us to serve warrants or run down a suspect. I didn't think it would be about. . .me."

Jordan raised an eyebrow. "When government leaders get together to 'review' a closed case, they can't make it about the legal ramifications of serving a search warrant, Kate. You should know that by now. It's always going to come down to personal conduct and subjective opinions. If it was about legal stuff, they'd have to re-open every case you two worked together on. There's no way the DA would go for that. A review board is always going to be personal."

Castle was hollowed out by her statement and turned a frantic look on Jordan Shaw. "You think they really will fire her? For good?"

Jordan sighed and quirked a smile at them. "I'll try my best to keep that from happening."

Kate gave Rick a confused look. "What do you mean? What are you doing here?"

She reached out and squeezed Kate's arm, giving Rick a once-over. "Looks like you've got yourself a defender here, Kate. Castle called me Monday night; we talked with Connors, and she's agreed to put it before the board to call me in before the review. So in a second, I'm going to just walk on in and demand my fifteen minutes."

"Oh, Jordan, no-" Kate reached up to grip Shaw's elbow, her face flickering with something Castle couldn't identify. He thought she looked scared for the agent. But that didn't make sense. "You let them have a go at you and it will never stop-"

Jordan shook her head. "I'm tough. I can take it."

"But that lets them into everything, *everything*. And you know it."

Castle realized suddenly that he had not comprehended the thing he'd asked Shaw to do. If she submitted before the review board, she had no representative, no advocate, and the questions could be anything the council wished; the Rules of Procedure allowed impromptu additions to the witness role without the witness's prior review of the questions. That meant Shaw had to be ready to defend any and every action, and to do it with aplomb, dignity, and steel. If Kate, knowing the questions ahead of time, had been so humiliated, how would Shaw fair?

"I made a mistake," Castle said. "This was a stupid idea. I didn't think about-"

"No, Castle." Jordan gave him a hard stare. Oh, man, she *was* the federal Kate. "Kate made a tough decision on her feet, she used the resources at hand. I've told her as much. I think that's true courage, going into a hostage situation with the only thing you've got, and coming out ahead? You two saved my life, and there's no way in hell I'm going to let them railroad one of New York's best detectives, best *teams*, simply because of some ulterior political motive."

"It might be more than that," Castle admitted, feeling a lingering dread in his stomach. "I shouldn't have gotten you involved. It might be Kate's. . .it might be about her mother's murderer. A conspiracy to suppress the truth."

Jordan gave Kate a quick, piercing look. "Whatever it's about, I'm involved. I want to be involved. I've got your back, Kate."

To Castle's shock, Kate reached out and took his hand, his *hand*, and squeezed it. "Thank you. Thank you both."

Jordan was giving an appraising glance at their hands, but Kate didn't let go. Rick squeezed back and took one step into her, a little closer, as if to test the limits, and she didn't step away either. He wanted to do somersaults of joy.

"Kate, if this does end badly," Jordan said after a moment. "You've got a job with us. I want you to think about that."

Beside him, close beside him, Rick felt her stiffen in surprise. "A job with the FBI?"

"Yes. On my team. But you know what that looks like," Jordan said and gestured towards somewhere down the hall, where even now her husband was distracting their daughter, doing duty as both mother and father. "And I doubt I can get Castle a place." She gave him a wink to dispel the sting of that statement.

"Thank you. I-I don't know what to say." Kate was squeezing his hand very tight now. Too tight. Was she trying to impart some warning or message that Rick was too dense to get?

Jordan nodded, then took a step back from them. "Well, let's get this show on the road."


	16. Chapter 16

When Castle moved to follow Agent Shaw, Kate stood in place and held him back, her hand moving to tighten on his forearm. He cast her a startled look and stopped in his tracks, forlornly looking after Jordan.

"She doesn't have all those fancy toys with her today, Castle. You'll live."

He pouted a moment. "Why can't we watch? You watched me."

She knew he saw the moment of _But that's different_ flicker across her eyes, knew he saw it by the joy that leaped into his own. And she meant it exactly like he took it. Kate took a breath to settle down and watched Jordan disappear down the hallway.

"The review board. . .they can ask anything, Castle. The answers might be things you don't want to hear."

"Oh."

"Might be things that *I* don't want hear." She corrected, dropping his arm to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Her loose knot of hair was beginning to fall now that it had dried. "Maybe stuff she doesn't want us to hear too. As fellow officers, we respect that Castle. We don't go in there."

He nodded, but his face still looked forlorn. "I didn't think about her needing a union rep or a lawyer. She doesn't have either."

"She should be okay," Kate said hesitantly, but she was thinking about how this thing had begun to efficiently take out everyone associated with her mother's murder. She was thinking about how everyone involved was dead or in jail, disbarred or suspended. "She should be fine."

"Did you hear anything from Ryan about the homeless guy?" Castle asked, turning back to her so he could reach down and grab her hand again.

Not subtle, not smooth. . .not very Castle, if she thought about it. At least, not the Castle of magazines and photo shoots, not the Castle of page six. But the eagerness. That was Rick. She shook her hand a little, to see how much of a death grip he had on her, but didn't shake him off. She didn't really want to. "Ryan texted me. Our suspect gave them directions to a dumpster a little further down and unies fished out the Bowie knife, wiped clean of prints."

"Darn," he said. "You don't think this guy really did it, do you?"

"No." She set her jaw and watched the line of people moving through security, wished she and Castle weren't standing somewhere so public while holding hands. But she refused to let that keep bothering her. It shouldn't bother her. She was going to have to just get used to it.

"It was the Dragon, cleaning up," Rick said and moved into her line of sight so that she had to meet his eyes. "Kate, who is this guy?"

She shivered. It had kept her up last night. Well, that and trying to figure out why Castle had left. Back and forth. "I don't know. That bothers me a lot. We have no idea who we're up against, just that he has power, he's far-reaching, and he's been around for years."

"He can terrorize the crime families, he can murder without consequence, he can set up someone to take his fall. He's got McCallister terrified; he's got our John Doe hired killer not saying a word about his employer-"

She shrugged her shoulders to dispel the doom cast over them. "I hate this. It never goes anywhere, Castle. We've got a homeless guy anxious to get state-run psych care, so he's copped to a murder he didn't commit but which nicely closes our case. We've got dead ends. Literally dead ends."

"But we know more than we did."

She didn't miss his liberal use of the word 'we.' "*We* don't have more facts though. Evidence? No. We have another layer of questions."

Castle hunched over to look in her the eyes. "But it's obvious that we're scaring the crap out of him, Kate. He's trying to get you kicked off the force."

"Yeah, and he just might do that. Either way, Castle, I'm done. I can't do this any more-"

That same look wiped over his face. That careful, delicate look of nothingness. That same look from last night. What the hell was with him? Like she'd wounded him. Like he was running for cover.

"You're done," he repeated.

She tried to make him understand. "I know this is important to you too. Fine. But it's my life. And I spent three years buried in it, buried alive, Castle. I can't do that again. My job is on the line now. It was bad enough that they wanted you gone, but this-I can't do it. I can't. If you want to run around looking into my mom's case, fine. Your loss. But I won't do it."

He laughed, wiped a hand down his face and let out another laugh. Was he hysterical? Kate stared at him.

"You're done," he said, shook his head again. "I get it now. You're done with this case. Ah."

She cast a critical eye over him, raising an eyebrow to emphasize how crazy she found him right now. "Castle."

"You were talking about your mom's case. Last night."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Yes. And you ran out on me." She paused, trying to judge the look on his face now. Was that relief? What was going on?

"I-I guess I did." He rubbed at his jawline and then shook his head again. "Wow. Yeah, we are terrible at communicating, Kate. I say too much and you don't say enough."

Startled, she stepped back from him, immediately saw what she was doing and forced herself to instead take a step forward. _Step forward, Kate. One step_. It brought her close enough to curl her hand around his bicep, smooth her thumb along the fabric of his dress shirt. He smelled sharp, musky. She took another breath. "That could be true. But right now, I need you to talk. Last night?"

"I'm an idiot. I did have to get going, the deposition had to be written and I was coordinating with Shaw and my lawyer, but I should have stayed and asked what you meant. Shouldn't have jumped to conclusions."

She saw, still, the vestiges of a rawness in his gaze. Kate had somehow hurt him last night. She knew she had to make an effort here. "Even though I can't keep working on my mom's case. . .Castle, I appreciate everything you've done. You've given me more answers in just these last few years than I have ever. . .you make me see it differently. You have been. . .more than helpful. I can't explain what that means to me. Just because I can't do it anymore, doesn't mean that I don't still need you." She bit her lip.

He smiled widely and the look in his eyes made her think he was going to kiss her. Here. In front of people. She pushed on his chest a little, glaring, and he seemed to think differently.

"That's. . .good to hear," he said softly. "I thought you meant something else. Last night. I thought-"

When he didn't continue, she pushed on him again, making him step back. "Talk, Castle."

"I thought you meant you were done with. . .this." He gestured between them with a sigh.

"Oh." Kate watched him a moment, remembered the look on his face, the raw edges bleeding through his eyes. Something had to be done. She wasn't an idiot at relationships. Not completely. She knew that words wouldn't erase that kind of wound; she had something to prove to him. Still. "Come with me."

Kate tugged on his shirt for him to follow, then she led them away from the lobby, the people at the security checkpoint, and down a different hallway. She spied the ladies room, bumped it open with a hip and glanced inside. When she turned back to Castle, he was leering at her. Kate wrestled with the grin that threatened, pursed her lips instead, and tugged him inside the women's bathroom.

"Why, Kate," he murmured, still grinning.

"It's not like you haven't followed me into a women's bathroom before," she said, but she didn't roll her eyes. She pushed him against the door to keep anyone else from coming in, holding him there with a hand.

Castle let himself be pushed, she saw, and brought his hands to her hips, pulled her close. "Not like this."

"True." She smiled wickedly and leaned onto his chest, palms against his shoulders. "Not like this."

And then she leaned in to prove herself.


	17. Chapter 17

The thing was, she had lost her job.

She had lost her job.

Detective Beckett was no longer a detective.

Richard Castle was a little terrified of what that might do to her. To him. He wasn't allowed to touch her when the council read their recommendations. Captain Montgomery rallied a defense; their chief argued against it (the same chief they had considered to be a suspect at one point). Gail Connors wrote a dissenting opinion (as if she were a judge; it did absolutely nothing) but Franklin looked entirely too pleased. Castle wanted to rip his throat out. He felt himself swaying forward, as if he might actually do the man bodily harm.

Ryan, at his side at the witness table, nudged him just a little, causing Castle's blood lust to clear long enough for him to catch the look on Kate's face.

Oh God. This was bad.

Her forehead was furrowed so deep, she might never smooth it out again. Her eyes were too bright but she wasn't crying. She was biting the inside of her cheek so deeply that Castle could see the hard ridge of the muscle in her jaw as she clamped down.

He wanted very badly to touch her; she was a solitary thing, an immovable, untouchable beauty. She was stiff, upright, her spine so straight it might rip through her back.

The recommendations from the review board meant nothing, really, unless someone was willing to act on it. The Dragon was more than willing but who he might be in the cadre of men who finally decided her fate, he didn't know. He couldn't even begin to guess. Castle had called the mayor about it last night, knowing the judgment was coming down this morning. But the mayor had said it was out of his hands. The DA wanted her gone; someone high up was pushing on everyone to get this done, over with. Franklin and a majority of the review board said specifically that her integrity had been compromised by the tragedy of her young life. Pedantic, obfuscating bastards, all of them. Castle wanted to punch Franklin in the mouth, see blood run down his face, his chin, see his teeth fall out.

He had punched Lockwood in the face, repeatedly, one time. When the hired killer had abducted two police detectives and tortured them. When he had lifted his sniper rifle and set his target on Beckett, alone on the other side of the warehouse. Castle had jumped him, heedless of anything other than needing to save Kate, and had bashed the man's head into the concrete floor, then pummeled him. His knuckles swelled and bruised. Kate had wrapped his hand, touched him. His hand was black for weeks.

He watched Gail fume in her seat, and he wished she had called the whole thing off back when she'd had a chance, furious with himself for not insisting on it, for not browbeating her with the truth.

The Dragon had won. Who was he? Did he gloat now? Would they even know him? Was that why he felt so threatened by him and Kate that he needed to get her fired? Was the Dragon one of the men who had cast their eye towards the political horizon and thought the city theirs for the taking?

Franklin was saying something about the great burden placed upon the NYPD, about how this took an inevitable psychological toll, about how the fine men and women of the force were a highly-trained, proud and elite group who deserved Richard Castle's respect, rather than his paltry parodies and his foolhardy, childish behavior. Consultants were going to be required to have training in miranda rights and criminal law before being allowed to ride-along on search and arrest warrants. Consultants must stay within a certain radius of their assigned officer. Yada yada yada.

Like Castle would do this without her.

As for Katherine Beckett, she had no doubt served her city with diligence and respect. She had been affected by a terrible crime, and that crime had caused her to identify with the victims' families, to obsess over these cases, to take them personally, in an unhealthy way; firing her was _for her own good_. Her years of therapy were brought up against her, as if getting grief therapy was somehow a bad thing, and then they mentioned a number of insistences, specifically, when Beckett had chosen to cater to Richard Castle's demands rather than make the legal or ethically correct choice.

(He hated to admit it, but he had done some stupid things; he had put her and the boys in danger a time or two. Some of those things had ended up okay, like going in first and finding the dog, like not staying in the car and capturing the suspect; but what it came down to, each time, every time, was how he'd worn her down, Detective Beckett, until she began to allow him more and more leeway. Now he went in with the tactical team, now he chased after suspects, now he confronted serial killers. It looked very bad.)

There was no arguing with them. Castle wanted to stand up and yell at the top of his lungs that they were being unfair, that this wasn't right, that Kate Beckett was the most honorable, righteous woman he knew, that she always put the safety of her team and the people of New York above her own needs. He wanted to remind them that she had run after a dirty bomb in a thought-to-be-vain attempt to obstruct a terrorist's plot. If it hadn't been for Kate Beckett, countless murderers would be free-

"Yes sir," Kate said. Franklin had asked if she understood. Castle couldn't believe she had the presence of mind to be so polite.

The Commissioner and the DA had conferred with the Commissioner's appointed First Deputy Police Commissioners. Basically, the guy the mayor himself had appointed, who served at the mayor's pleasure, had colluded with the DA and the deputy commissioners to get rid of Kate Beckett. The best investigative detective the 12th had. The best period.

Then they were thanked for their time and dismissed.

Kate Beckett walked out without her badge, without her gun, and without him as well.

She walked away from him. He called her name, and she kept walking. He had no choice.

* * *

><p>Kate, numb and hollow, wandered.<p>

It was morning. It was bright. The air was cold. She had goose bumps but did not know what to do about that. She shivered; her stomach growled. She felt the sidewalk under her feet; she couldn't figure out if the traffic lights were meant to tell her to stop or to go. She kept walking, crossed the road, kept walking.

She was not demoted; she had not been stripped of her detective status and busted back down to traffic cop. She was fired. She was stripped of her badge, her gun, her reason for living. She was done.

_Oh, Mom. I'm so sorry._

She choked on something, was that just the air in her lungs solidifying or tears that wouldn't fall? She stumbled against a parking meter, bewildered by it, pushed off and kept walking. She heard something important, felt it just at the edge of her senses, but she wouldn't let herself probe it. Too much. If she started feeling for it now, it would all fall on her.

If she just kept walking, it couldn't catch up.

It was going to catch up. It was already on her. She couldn't walk away from it. It was a shadow over her, blotting out whatever light she might have once had.

She wished she were someone else; she wished she wasn't a 33 year old woman whose mother had been murdered. She wished that this event hadn't created in her this, this Batman complex. As Castle called it-

Castle. Oh God, she couldn't. She couldn't right now, please-

She turned blindly, in the middle of the sidewalk, started going back, back the way she'd come, but none of it looked right. She wasn't sure where she'd come from, where she was going. Stuck. She needed-she needed something she had no words for.

She needed to keep walking. She needed to put a foot up. Down? She needed- -to breathe. To keep breathing. She forced her eyes to close, the blackness to rush in on her, forced her eyes to open again.

This time when she looked, things were recognizable. A building. Many buildings. The city. Sidewalk. Strangers. Castle-

Castle?

He was watching her, waiting now that she had noticed him, a hesitant look on his face, about a hundred yards away. She wasn't surprised that she'd been able to pick him out of the crowded street, only surprised it had taken her this long.

She felt too brittle to move. If she moved, any direction, she would crumble.

Kate watched him, needing, desperate for help, for touch, for a world that wasn't this, wasn't hers. The orchid, she remembered. She needed something to prop her up, let her bloom without fear of collapsing.

He came closer; people moved between them. Every time a person blocked her vision of him, she felt her whole body tremble. When he was only a few feet away, she lifted her hand, fingers out, her chest so tight that she couldn't catch her breath.

Castle took her hand, hooked his arm around her neck, tried to drag her into a hug. She stiffened, drew away. If he hugged her, she would be gone, she would be nothing anymore, she would be Castle's girlfriend, muse, Castle's former Nikki Heat. She pushed on him, harder, liked the feel of the immovable force before her, pushed again, harder again, grunted and crashed her head against his chest, again, beating, her hands in fists at his back now-

He hugged her tight, very tight, so tight she had to struggle to move; it took everything in her to keep moving.

Castle. She needed-

"You can hit me," he said. "You can beat me up. Just take me to the hospital when you're done, okay?"

She gulped in air, a laugh or a sob, bit the edge of his collar, gnashed her teeth against the thin material of his shirt, felt the fury and helplessness see-saw within her, felt something else overwhelming both of those. Need.

She rocked her hips against him, opened her mouth to bite his collarbone. "Marry me, Castle. Marry me before I don't know how to do this anymore."

"What did you say?"

"Marry me." She bruised him, brought his face to hers to keep from squeezing his neck.

"That's not funny, Kate."

"I'm not laughing."


	18. Chapter 18

They sat in silence. Rick wished he'd thought to get them coffee, so at least their hands would have something to do. He'd followed her into downtown New York, and when she'd broken down in front of him, furious and wild-eyed, he'd taken her to the offices of his publisher because he just didn't know where else to go. They needed privacy; she needed space. He needed to recover.

He'd called Black Pawn's officer manager, Julia, as he'd ushered Kate through the streets, arranging for everything. Julia cleared out a conference room near the front office, secluded by virtue of being the only room on that side, and all they'd had to do was ride the elevator up, walk into Black Pawn's offices, and go straight in. Julia had even made herself scarce to give them privacy.

Kate was huddled in an office chair, her knees drawn up to her chest, her eyes closed, her cheek pressed against her knee. She looked inviolate, sacred. A space that he'd never be able to touch. He sat a few seats down from her, wondering what to say.

The room was dark; he hadn't turned on a light, just accepted what little illumination came through the window blinds. One hand laid curled on the conference room table, as if in arrested motion, halfway reaching out to ask for her hand, halfway withdrawn. Rick was entirely uncertain about this; he only knew that watching her suffer was better than imagining her suffer. At least with this, in the dark room, he could make certain she was still breathing.

There were tears on her cheeks, silent and single. Like everything about her now, alone, cut off. She raised a hand from time to time, brushed a finger at the wetness, but it didn't do any good. It did nothing to change the outcome.

Rick was at peace in the center of things. Not that he was happy with this, not that he didn't want to grab someone by the throat and shake. But he saw, _knew_, that he had to be the unmovable one. He knew that it was up to him to provide consistency, a sense of anchor.

Which is why he'd said nothing about her hysterical proposal on the sun-drenched street of downtown New York. Nothing. She was breaking; she was not herself. He was going to honor the request she'd given him last week, last Friday, when she'd asked him not to come around. Well, he was honoring the spirit of that request: he was refusing to let her make rash decisions or alter her life until she was stable again. He hadn't been able to stay away from her this past week, but he'd let her know he was there. She'd invited him in again. She was stronger then she thought. She'd bounce back from this.

She did *not* want to marry him. Castle was certain of that. If she were herself, she'd have unleashed her fury on him for even entertaining the idea of dragging her off somewhere and marrying her. (Marry her. Now. Today.) No, Kate Beckett was breaking, Kate Beckett was crumbling, and he was going to keep those pieces together until they healed. Castle had become the plaster cast for the compound fracture of her spirit.

Her voice was quiet, singular when it came. "You haven't said yes."

He raised his eyes from the table, found that she was still huddled in the chair, eyes closed, weary. "Yes, Kate."

"Then what are we waiting for?"

"I'm waiting for you to mean it," he said softly, watching her.

Her eyes opened, focused slowly on the room around them, and then journeyed toward him. When she saw that he was watching her, she lifted her head, resting her chin on her knees, quiet, too still.

"I mean it."

"No, you don't," he said, for a half-second hating her, hating her for making him do this, making him tell her no, making him be the responsible one.

"Castle." She blinked, her lids slowly rising, as if it took a supreme effort to keep them open. "I always mean it. I just usually have more sense than to say it."

_So you better take it_.

Rick watched her, studied her. He wanted her so badly that it was more than tempting to call her bluff. _Marry her._ He wanted it. His body clamored for it, everything ringing so loud that he had trouble hearing his own thoughts, the warnings of his conscience. _Marry her_. She did want it; he could see that she wanted it, a rest, a refuge, and that the usual, pulled-together, in-control Kate Beckett had dissolved. For now. For now. She'd be back. And then what? _Marry her_.

He caught her eyes, held them with his own, and pulled out his phone. He took a second to find the Mayor in his contacts, and then he was rung through to his private office.

"Rick, so sorry, man. I am so sorry. I can't get the Commissioner to see reason on this one. I'd fire him, I really would, but he's got-

"Hey, actually, that's not what I'm calling about," Rick interrupted, keeping his eyes on Kate. "I need a justice of the peace and a marriage license."

"A marriage- -what?"

"You heard me," Rick said, and the dare wasn't for the Mayor, his friend, it was for the woman still sitting before him, curled up like a child in the office chair.

"A marriage license. I'd have to get you a special circumstances exemption, I'd need blood tests-"

"Email me what you need from us. I'll get it. I need this today."

"Today."

"Yes." Kate hadn't even flinched.

"Rick-"

"Don't," he warned, knowing it was something about having two previous failed marriages, blah blah blah. He was marrying Kate. Before she knew better. Because he wanted her. _Wanted_ her.

"I'll see how feasible this is, then I'll call you back."

"Email me." He didn't want reality intruding with a ring of the phone.

"All right. Shit, Richard-"

"Just do it." He hung up the phone; his eyes hadn't left hers once.

She was just the same.

Castle felt vicious, like a cornered animal. "You better mean it."

She still said nothing.

"You asked me once why I was so fascinated with death, why I write about it all the time. I made something up rather than tell you truth."

Her eyes didn't leave his face.

"Here's the truth. I don't know who my father is. I made up stories about him instead; sometimes, I still do. But the only man who ever treated me like a son? He was arrested for murder when I was nine. A little girl. Mother wouldn't talk about it. I wasn't told any of the details. I've looked it up since, as an adult, and the case against him was air-tight. I stopped looking. But I never have stopped asking _Why?_ Why did he treat me like a son, teach me how to pitch a two-seam fastball, how to burp the alphabet, how to build robots. . .and then kill a little girl? Why, Kate?"

He knew he was yelling at her. He was furious, angry because he already knew how this ended: it had happened twice before. But this time, this time he would hold on so tight, she couldn't possibly let go.

"Why, Kate?" he asked again. "Just tell me why."

She seemed to know exactly what he was asking, because she took a long moment to think.

"Because I'm afraid."

He didn't know if he could breathe.

"I'm afraid that I'll wake up tomorrow without. . ." She shuddered a long breath. "It took a direct order from a superior officer to make me accept you at all. It took another direct order from both my boss and then the mayor to give you a second chance when you crossed all my lines and investigated my mother's case. Now I don't have any direct orders left. There's no authority higher than this one."

_Make me_. Make me.

All right. He was going to make her.


	19. Chapter 19

First thing he did when he got away from Kate Beckett was call his daughter. He was inside the capitol building to meet up with a clerk who was pushing things through for them, but Rick took a second to step into a secluded alcove just off the atrium to reach Alexis. He'd left Kate outside, hiding across the street.

"Dad?"

"Hey sweetheart-"

"You sound stressed. What's going on? Did Kate lose her job? It's been hours-"

He interrupted. "Kate lost her job, Alexis."

"Oh no. Oh no. I can't believe it-"

"But, sweetheart, that's not even the half of it."

"What? What's going on?"

Rick leaned his head back to the wall and closed his eyes. "I need your opinion on something. It's a pretty big deal, Alexis, and I want you to think about it before you answer. And then I might need your help."

She didn't even hesitate. "Okay. Dad, what's wrong?"

"I don't know. It might not be wrong. I just-" Rick rubbed a hand down his face, tried to figure out how to say this. "You know I love you, you know I do."

"That really doesn't sound good, Dad."

He gave a shaky laugh. "Yeah, I know. But I've done something kinda stupid."

"Oh, Dad. . ."

"Kate asked me to marry her, and I gave in and said yes." Alexis was absolutely silent, and Rick rushed in to fill the void. "She's fallen apart, Alexis. She's really messed up right now, and hurting, and she walked out of the building and just wandered around, but I followed her and-"

"Dad, Dad. Hold on. Wait a second. She asked you to marry her?"

"Yeah. She's not herself, Alexis. I don't know what to do."

"Except. . .marry her."

"You sound upset." Rick sat up straight, anxiety gnawing at him. "Are you upset?"

"I'm. . .surprised." Alexis breathed on the phone, but stayed silent after that. He supposed he shouldn't press her for a reaction, since he had just asked her to think about it.

"Me too. She. . .I followed her for awhile, until she looked like she was thoroughly lost. I went up to her, to try to take her home. And she just fell apart, Alexis. She crumbled. And then-"

"And then she asked you to marry her? Dad. . .this doesn't sound like a really great start to a marriage."

He felt it like a mortal blow, bowed his head. "I know. I know. I just don't know what else to do."

"Can you not. . .talk to her?"

"I tried. I said no, first thing. I figured she was just panicking. And then I took her to the publishing offices and tried to talk to her. I tried, Alexis."

"What did you say, Dad, that made her ask you that?"

"Nothing! We weren't even talking about us. I was trying to hug her, I was trying to hold her up, and she was trying not to cry, I think. And then she just looked up and said, 'Marry me.'"

Alexis was silent again for awhile, but this time Rick was just too weary to keep talking. He knew that it wasn't up to Alexis, that she couldn't possibly understand the ways in which he and Kate were intertwined, but it did matter to him that Alexis was okay with this.

"Dad, I think that. . .that you've wanted to be with her for a long time. And I think she knows that, and she likes you, she might even love you, I don't know. And maybe she's just scared that things will change too much, now that she's not a detective. I can't believe they fired her. Wow. That's just-"

"Yeah. Back on track, Alexis."

"Dad, I'm afraid that starting out like this, just jumping into it without thinking. . .I don't know if that's such a good idea."

"You and me both, kiddo."

"But telling Kate no. . .that might make things worse."

"Yeah." He took a deep breath. "And I'm selfish enough to go through with it, Alexis. I always thought I was a pretty generous person, pretty easy-going, ready for a good joke. But I can't let Kate get away from me. I won't say no to her. Not even now. I'm going to marry her. Today, if the mayor can help me get a license."

Alexis was quiet for a moment. "Dad. . .what do you need me to do?"

He closed his eyes, thanked God for her all over again, and cleared his throat. "Can you call some people? I haven't. . .I want you there. And it occurs to me that Kate's not in a really good place to be inviting people, but that later, she might wish she'd let people know."

"Like the guys at the station? Her dad?"

"Yeah. I'll talk with her about it in a minute, and call you back if it seems like a bad idea. In the meantime, check in my desk drawer for everyone's contact information. Also, that cigar box in the bottom has emergency money and the emergency credit card, plus all my personal information. Take the money, and if you don't mind, will you get Kate some flowers? Orchids, I think. She seemed to really like those. And maybe whatever else you think is a good idea. For a wedding."

"Oh my gosh, Dad. Okay. Um, where is this going to be?"

"I was thinking of the luxury hotels here in the city. . .they have gorgeous ballrooms, or a meeting room somewhere. Just not the capitol building."

"The New York Palace," Alexis said instantly.

"The Palace. Oh. I hadn't thought of that hotel. I was thinking the Waldorff or-"

"Dad, Waldorff is so richy-rich. . .too high society for Kate. Not that she's. . .I mean. Oh that sounded bad. I mean, she doesn't like all the pretension. And the Palace has that beautiful courtyard, Dad, remember? She'd love that, I think."

"Oh yeah." Rick felt his spirit lift a little, felt like this could actually happen. And happen the right way. "That would be really nice. I'll call my PA and get him to make arrangements over there. It's so last minute, and that place is usually booked I'm sure. But during the middle of the week. . .great idea, Alexis."

"Good. I'll get the orchids. What about a dress for Kate?"

He rubbed his chin. "Yeah. We'll get a room at the Palace so we can change, maybe stay there. . .after. Um, can you and Grams pick her out something elegant? Use the credit card. I want her to feel. . ." Rick pressed his hand against his chest, tried to hold in the feeling that overwhelmed him. "I want her to feel beautiful. That's not stupid is it?"

"No, Dad, that's very sweet." Alexis gave a little laugh. "I'll look for something. Any ideas where?"

"Oh, the dress I got her a few years back. . .remember that? The receipt and store info is in that cigar box too. They'll know her size, and be a great help in picking something out. I'll have the PA call you after he gets things arranged, and then he can help you and Mother with anything else."

"Got it. Orchids, dress. No problem. We'll make it beautiful, Dad. It will be fine."

He nodded to himself. "Do you think I'm making a mistake?"

"I think you love her."

"Yeah."

"I think you want to make it better for her."

"Still. Alexis. Is it the wrong thing to do?"

"Dad, if there's anything you've taught me, it's that sometimes we have to do the foolish things, the things that look like mistakes, the risky things for love."

Rick sighed. "That's not exactly encouraging."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Thanks, sweetheart."

"Yeah. Now go get back to Kate."

* * *

><p>Kate stood under the awning, shaded from the sun, and waited for him to come out of the building across the street from her. She was trying not to think about it too much, trying not to think at all. When she was alone, it struck her how alone she was. When he was in sight, her chest eased and she could breathe again.<p>

She didn't need him. She was strong.

Strength wasn't the issue here. She would be fine in a year or so. She had fine-tuned her emotional breakdowns through experience. She had traveled the steppes of grief, the hidden places of sorrow. She was a survivor, victim, orphan, all. She knew that losing her job would be akin to losing her mother all over again; she had coping mechanisms in place for that after years and years of grief therapy.

She would be fine. She would survive again. She was strong; she would come back stronger.

That's what scared her.

Being strong had gotten her nothing but alone. If she didn't do this now, while she was unable to pick up the pieces, if she didn't let Richard Castle glue her back together, she would get out the glue alone, fit the jagged edges back together alone, rebuild herself lonely.

Lonelier.

In this darkness, she saw the light.

Richard Castle was jay-walking across the wide avenue, manila envelope clutched to his chest. She had stayed across the street to avoid court reporters or anyone still hanging around after the review board. Esposito had called her once; Ryan five times. She wanted no one to talk to her, just in case she snapped back to reality.

_Let's do this._

When he stepped onto the curb, the sun caught the side of his face and illuminated the desolation in his eyes. She was hurting him; she was being selfish. He knew her too well. He was Cassandra of Troy; he saw the end and proclaimed its coming, but no one would listen. Kate had shut her ears.

"Your blood test on file with the NYPD. Mine from when I started the ride-along. We're lucky for that. He thinks he can get the special license by four o'clock today. Then Judge Markowitz will do it. Quick."

She nodded, reached out and took a fistful of his dress shirt to draw him close. She was hurting him; she was being selfish. When this was over, she would make it worth his while; she would make it ok. Kate moved in closer, lifted up a little on her toes, but Castle pushed on her shoulder, knocked her back down.

"No."

She waited.

"I don't. . .Just no."

Okay. She knew what he was doing, trying to make it special, keep it sacred. Nothing between them was sacred; it was all hard-fought and bloody, a war. She was shell shocked and seeing flashbacks; he was dragging her out of the warzone over his shoulder, wounded himself. She'd wait; she'd make it good.

And then what?

Whatever. Now mattered. Before she woke up.

"Take me home," she said.

"Mine?"

"Is it mine as well?"

His face clouded; the rage that came across him was fascinating, like standing in an open field when a thunderstorm was bearing down, lightning crackling the ozone.

"Is anyone invited?" he said ruthlessly. "Your father?" And when that got nothing from her. "Alexis?"

Something stirred to life; she tried to hold on to the ice with both hands but it was beginning to burn. She looked away from him. "Alexis."

The girl who loved her. The girl who asked shyly for her opinion; the girl she had shared chocolate oreos with and confessed she might really like her father. The girl who deserved better than Kate.

"Does my daughter get to attend our wedding, Kate? Does your father? It's the last one you'll ever have; you might want him to be there." His voice was callous, hard, furious.

She struggled against it, sluggish, drowning in a frozen lake. "The last one I'll ever have?" she repeated, and lifted her eyes to try to smile at him.

He growled back and stalked towards her, looming. "Absolutely last. Do you hear me? This isn't a game. This isn't funny to me. You better want this, Kate."

She couldn't help the smile, couldn't help that it looked wrong, deformed, out of place, because she felt wrong. But it was real. Kate Beckett was struggling beneath the shell, fighting, just as she always did.

But for now.

"And your mother." She reached up and pressed her palm to his cheek in wonder, watched the fury drain from his eyes. "Lanie. Esposito. Ryan. Jenny. Captain. Jordan Shaw and her family, if they're still in town."

Rick blinked; his expression cleared, reformed. "Yeah," he said roughly, either in agreement or as a question, she couldn't tell.

"Family."

"Yeah," he said again, and it was agreement.

"You and me, Castle." She could feel the real Kate putting up a fight, could feel herself battling back from the cold, the numbness, the soft edges.

Castle took a shuddering breath and gathered her in, where she found she wanted to be, his mouth against her ear.

"Always."


	20. Chapter 20

Rick Castle didn't consider himself a devious man. Perhaps sneaky, but sneaky in the most obvious, not subtle kind of way. Sneaky like a three year old is sneaky (which is really not at all). This, however, was as close to devious as he'd ever come.

He needed to make one more phone call. Behind her back.

They wandered away from City Hall, away from the seat of government, and back towards her side of town. He wasn't going to point it out, but she was unconsciously steering them towards the 12th. As if she had a homing beacon, as if she couldn't help herself. It was this that convinced him he needed to make the call.

Since they were miles from where he intended them to be (City Hall was near the southern most tip of the island, while the Palace Hotel was just south of Central Park), Rick tried to figure out a way to get her in a cab. It turned out to be easier than he expected. At Houston Street in Soho, Kate suddenly sagged against the traffic pole, hands on her knees, her head bent. She was taking deep breaths, but her face was white.

Rick put a hand on her back, and stepped off the curb with his other hand raised. A cab was passing at that instant, unoccupied praise God, and Rick picked her up and put her in it. Well, he didn't have to exactly pick her up, but it felt a lot like he was bearing the brunt of her weight, sleight as it might be. In the cab, she leaned over with her head between her knees while the cabbie stalled and wouldn't pull into traffic, yelling about not getting throwing up in his backseat, one door open like he was going to physically put them out of the cab.

"Just drive. She needs something to eat is all. Light-headed. Drive!" Rick yelled back, shoving a roll of twenties at the man. The money did it, though a loud grumbling persisted, and when Kate finally raised her head, she didn't look green, she looked embarrassed.

"I can't eat," she said.

"You will though." He didn't even care if she argued until she was blue in the face, he was getting her food. And himself. He could actually eat something. "It's lunch time anyway." And then he had a brilliant idea. "Hey, drop us at West 34th and 7th Avenue," he called out and pushed the plastic door between them closed.

She was shaking her head, squeezing his knee with a painful grip. "No, Rick. That's Remy's. No way. I told you I'm not hungry."

"But it's on the way. And I'm starving," he whined, and watched her face as they fell back into their usual roles. He was heartened to see her the stern set of her eyes, to feel her grip on his knee get tighter.

"I can't go to Remy's. I won't, Castle." His last name. Another milestone on the road to recovery.

"Come on, please? I want a burger. It's been ages since I ate. And Remy's is right on the way. We can get it to go." He waited, heart paused, hoping she'd take the bait. Devious. Absolutely devious.

She was glaring at him. Score! It felt like a victory, just that familiar Beckett face back in place, where it should be. No more Lost Little Girl Kate, no more Helpless Kate looking to Rick for guidance. He wanted to laugh; he wanted to celebrate. But calling attention to it would ruin it, he was certain.

"I'm not going in there," she said heatedly, and crossed her arms over her chest. "I was just dizzy for a second. I'm not hungry."

"I'm pretty sure you didn't eat breakfast this morning, and I saw you eat dinner last night. A couple of bites of baked potato and pushing your fish around your plate doesn't really count as a meal, Beckett."

Using her last name had the desired effect. She seemed to fall naturally all the way back into her usual role. Glare in place. Eye roll! His heart was pounding. "Fine. But we're getting it to go. And I'm waiting outside."

"Fine." He grinned and took her hand from his knee, wrapping his fingers around it, holding her loosely. He brought their fists up to his chest and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. When she didn't pull away, he knew they were still not out of the woods. He felt like he was fighting for the old Beckett, fighting to keep the strong and sexy woman in charge of this body, this soul, fighting against whatever it was that had taken her over. Because the woman he'd followed around, ordered around, these last couple hours wasn't the Kate Beckett he knew and loved.

He needed to make that phone call.

When the cab eventually pulled up at the corner, Rick paid him the difference (he'd already shoved money at the guy, and he wasn't going to reward the man's stingy behavior earlier, when Kate had been dizzy and sick and the cabbie was trying to push them back out onto the street). He helped Kate out and took her hand in his, dragging her down the street. He hadn't called ahead with their order, and it was the lunch rush, so he knew he'd have the time.

"Look, sit in there," he said, pointing to the business across the street. "I'll get our food."

"I'm not hungry."

"Turkey burger it is," he said, and gave her a little push toward the place while he went in the opposite direction.

Once he was certain she couldn't see him, Rick pulled out his phone.

Jordan Shaw answered on the first ring. "I've been waiting for your call."

"Hey Jordan, and how are you?"

"Funny. I heard about Kate."

"Yeah, that's why I'm calling."

"I know. Where are you? It sounds like a rock concert."

Rick sighed, leaned against the inside wall of Remy's. "I'm in a diner. I needed to do this without Kate knowing."

"Oh," Jordan said, going quiet.

"You serious about offering her a job?"

"I was. I am," Jordan shot back. "Can you handle that?"

"What? Kate with a job she loves, doing what she was made to do? Or Kate moping at my side, growing ever more depressed?"

"Point taken. You get her to DC Monday morning, I can get her a preliminary interview. I can't guarantee it, of course, because everyone has to pass the background check, but she's solid. She'll make it."

"And then what? Tell me how this works. Kate will be against it at first, and I need to know what it is she'll be keeping from me."

Jordan was silent for awhile. "This is a good thing you're doing here, Castle. She's not going to forget this."

"Fine, fine. Just tell me what I need to do to make this happen."

* * *

><p>As they'd walked from the cab, he had told her details, like he was trying to shock her. The Palace New York was opening the courtyard for them. The courtyard was luxurious and sculpted, iron railings which walled off a terrace, marble stairs that dropped down to the lower garden level, the center fountain with tiled mosaics, the archway onto the private street. He had talked and talked, she had tried not to listen, and they got ever closer.<p>

She didn't want to come here, but Castle wanted lunch and wouldn't listen to her. Remy's was crowded, so Kate had convinced him to order it to go, and she waited across the street inside a laundromat. She didn't want to explore the reasons why she didn't want to go inside their usual place, but she knew it had to do with no longer belonging there. She knew she didn't want to see the cops who'd come in for a burger, and she didn't want to have to talk, to make nice, to say she was feeling fine when she was feeling. . .She felt not much at all, actually, and she'd come to a place where that was scaring her. Just a little bit. Which maybe was a good thing.

The laundromat was humid and warm from the dryers; her hair was curling around her face. Kate leaned back in the orange, plastic chair and tried repeatedly to wash all thoughts out of her head. Focus on the white noise of the dryer, listen to the round and round of clothes, a zipper that banged at every revolution.

But things crept in.

She was binding herself to Richard Castle. She was marrying him. Oh God, she was going to marry him. He'd never let her take it back; she didn't want to take it back. She wanted it to have never happened. She wanted him to come back with lunch and sloppy Remy's turkey burgers, lean up against an empty washing machine with him at her side, tall and warm. She wanted her job back. Her mother. She wanted her mother.

Castle would have to do.

And then what? It haunted her, this question. Would she really live in that massive loft with him? Would she really see Alexis off to school in the morning and wait for her to come home in the evening? Was she going to be that kind of wife? A wife. Holy crap, she was going to be Rick Castle's wife. His third wife. She rubbed at her eyes, pressed the heel of her hands into her eyeballs. She had a terrible headache that wrapped around her skull and pierced the back of her neck. She was going to be Castle's third wife.

_And his last_, something in her ruthlessly asserted.

She heard the door open and felt the quick breath of cooler air as it swirled across her neck. And then Castle was dropping a bag in her lap; she opened her eyes to look at him. He was still angry, brittle with it, but instead of it making him fragile, it made him stronger. How could a person be brittle with anger, and so towering, so decisive, so determined? She didn't know this Castle. Was this the man he was when others depended on him? When he dropped that page six persona? She had thought she'd seen that true Richard Castle, back when she'd accepted a dinner invitation at his loft, and then to the theatre with Alexis and Ashley.

But this was his true self, unfolding before her like a peal of thunder breaking away from stormclouds. She wanted to dwell on him, not herself today. She wanted to explore every inch of this man, with the hope of leaving herself uncharted. Unknown. Unaccessible. Closed off behind whatever fortress she'd managed to shove herself inside of (but she was breaking out, she felt herself sloughing it off, and she didn't want to; she wanted numbness).

She could see that he wasn't going to let that happen. He didn't skim surfaces. He didn't float at the top. He was going to plunge so deeply, she'd never get rid of him.

She was starting to panic. Not a good sign for her closed-off, untouchable self. He was already doing it, already breaking through to her, and she just wanted to not think for awhile.

Kate opened the white bag in her lap to give herself something to do, stood up to spread the contents over the lid of a washing machine. Castle stepped up beside her, switched their burgers (hers with avocado, his with mustard and lettuce and onions), and handed out ketchup and fries. She'd asked for a beer, but he'd gotten her green tea. Himself as well. Her hands were shaking. Again. She made fists and shove them into the pockets of her jacket, one hip against the machine, waiting until she thought she could calm down.

A beer would've been nice. But not helpful. She got sad when she drank. She didn't need to be any sadder, sorrier, than she already was. For goodness's sake, Castle was making better decisions than she was.

Although both of them were making the worst decision of all, soon, and both of them were avoiding talking about it.

He was digging into his burger, she was just starting to pick at hers, stomach churning, when she heard his phone buzz in his pocket. He pulled it out one-handed; she watched him check his email, slowly chewing a fry. She couldn't eat. She couldn't speak. She wasn't hollow any longer, and whatever it was that was slowly filling her. . .it made her sick.

"Okay. We're ready," he said, and put his half-eaten burger down.

"Ready."

"It's all set up."

"Oh God," she whispered, and it all came rushing in, a tidal wave, a tsunami utterly destroying whatever sticks of structure she had left inside her.

Castle reached out to catch her as she swayed, moved to press her against himself, but she backed away, feet unsteady, knees jelly, but still standing. "Castle."

He shook his head at her, his simmering anger boiling over again. "It's all set up, Kate."

She thought, stupidly,_ I don't have a dress_. And she must have said it, or looked it, because he captured her wrist with those long, strong fingers and tugged her back towards him. "I've got everything. Alexis and Mother took care of things."

"My Dad," she said, finally. Her throat was too dry. She longed for that beer, banished the thought with a shake of her head. "My Dad."

"He's there. He'll be there, I mean."

She twisted her arm to break his hold, but he wasn't letting go. She didn't have the heart, or enough panic, to force him to let her go. "Rick," she pleaded.

And then he did release her, took a step back, collected their trash from the top of the washing machine and dumped it in the garbage can by the door. He left her by the machine, still shaking, and then stood by the glass door that led back outside, to the street and the next hour, the next day, the rest of her life.

He waited. He said nothing. He wasn't going to force her, and she needed him to force her. Still, she would hate him tomorrow if he did.

She pressed a fist to her stomach. "I can't."

He nodded, turned his face so that she couldn't see him, and walked out.


	21. Chapter 21

He walked. Castle ignored the street, ignored the pedestrians and the traffic. He put one foot in front of the other and tried to tell himself that this was exactly the outcome he'd been pushing for. This had been his plan all along. He'd meant to snap her out of it, and with a return to reality would come Kate's backing out of the wedding, of course. Of course.

He snorted. What wedding? It would've been a civil service before a judge, hastily arranged and thrown together by his daughter and his mother. It wasn't anything like what he'd imagined, nothing close to what she deserved. He wanted to overwhelm her when he finally got her down the aisle.

Get real. He'd never get her down the aisle. This was Kate Beckett. He'd kidnap her Sunday night, put her on a plane, and deliver her to DC and Jordan Shaw's capable hands. He'd make sure she got to that interview, and the next one, and then he'd be the dutiful partner and be her backup, whatever she decided. He knew she'd go with the FBI. He knew that.

She'd be in Quantico for training. 20 weeks training, he knew, because he'd done that research for a book. He wondered if he could survive 20 weeks without seeing her, talking to her. . .

He could. He could do it. He'd do a book signing. Maybe he could get her to arrange it so that her new agent training occurred during the summer, when he was promoting the new Nikki Heat. Maybe he really *would* end up writing Federal Heat. This could be a good thing. He tried to convince himself of that.

She wasn't coming after him.

Rick stopped at the next block. He was at 40th and the Port Authority. The glass and steel rose up above him, a saucer of transportation, and people were pushing, crowding him; he had to stand his ground to keep from getting caught up in the swell of people.

Maybe she *had* come after him, but couldn't find him in the rush.

Wishful thinking of course.

His phone vibrated; he took a deep breath, closed his fist around it. He looked up, past the people, searching for sky. He'd have to call Alexis. His mother. He'd have to call Kate's father as well, explain himself, explain what he'd done. Would the man understand? Or would he think that Castle was playing around? Shit. He had a mess here. Better own up to it, Castle.

This would have to be Alexis. Wanting to know when to expect them. How was he going to explain this to his daughter? She might have a really reasonable head on her shoulders, be super mature, but at heart, she was a little girl who hadn't ever had a real mother. And Kate. . .Castle sighed, opened his fist to look at his phone. It was a text.

From Kate.

_Don't you dare walk out on me._

Castle stared at it. Blinked.

For half a second, he thought, _I can't do this_.

But it was Kate. So he started walking. Back. Always back to her.

* * *

><p>Kate Beckett was pissed. Scared, yes, but pissed. Pissed was easier. She reveled in the anger, ignored the fear. As always.<p>

She'd uttered two words, confessed two words to him, and he'd left her. As she always feared he would. She'd have to train him to ignore that instinct. She had just had her entire life ripped out from under her, and he wanted her to be perfect, to not say the wrong thing when she panicked? Well, he had another thing coming. She wasn't perfect; she was good at being alone. This?

This was how things worked for her. He'd have to accept it.

Kate stalked the sidewalk outside the laundromat, waiting for him to read that text and get his ass back over here. She knew he would, too. She wasn't afraid of that. Not at all. If anything, *that* made her more afraid. That she had this power over him. That she whistled and he came. That he was that caught up in her.

Still. She was whistling.

And he came. Castle was walking, but it was swift. Like he might break out into a run at any second. She crossed her arms in the middle of the sidewalk, let people flow around her, stared him down until he caught sight of her.

Castle stopped dead. Jerked as someone plowed right into him, stuttering forward a little with momentum, an arm swinging, and then he was only ten feet from her. He'd come this whole way at her whistle. Only fair she took the last ten feet.

Kate uncrossed her arms and started forward, keeping her eyes on him. She saw him gulp, shove his hands in his pockets; she saw resolution settle in his spine. He lifted his chin and watched her with his own frown.

"What the hell was that, Castle?" she said, shoving him when she got close enough.

"Ow," he whined, rubbing at his chest.

"I didn't hurt you," she scoffed and stepped closer. They were blocking traffic on the sidewalk, people jostling them into each other.

Castle pitched forward as one aggressive pedestrian pushed past him; she caught him with both hands, steadied him, then decided she liked where her hands were, kept them on his biceps. His arms were stronger than she expected, every time. He had to weightlift, had to, with that kind of muscle tone. Distracting is what it was.

"Castle, you can't run away from me every time I say something you don't like. You ass."

He actually laughed, cupping her elbows to keep her in front of him. "My bad."

"More than your bad, Castle. That was childish. Although why I expected anything more from you, I don't know-"

"Okay, all right. Tone it down, Beckett." He stepped closer under the guise of being pushed into her (yes, she saw through that) and leaned close enough to warn her that he was going to kiss her. "But I'm glad you're back."

She only had half a second to wonder what that meant before Castle's mouth was covering hers, warm, soft, rich. She breathed slowly, stepped in a little closer, let herself open to him. The way he tasted, the way he worked his mouth over hers, the insistent press of his fingers at her elbows, all of it washed her clean of fear, of anger, of anything other than him.

Castle broke it off just when she was ready to risk public indecency, pulled back from her, only to come back and lean his forehead against hers. "So you won't marry me?"

She shivered, brought both hands up to cup his face and bring him in for another kiss. But he resisted.

"Kate."

She settled for kissing his jaw, pressing his cheek to her own. "I asked you, Castle. First."

"And then you said you couldn't." He rubbed his hands up and down her back, slowly. "So now I'm asking you."

She said the first thing that came to her. Trying to save this. "If you're asking me, Castle, then it's yes."

"How come I don't believe that, Kate?"

"I don't know. Maybe because I scared the shit out of you by being honest, both times, and now you think that those two things are mutually exclusive."

"And they're not?"

"They're not."

"So what does this mean?"

"This means that I want to marry you. . .oh shit, that sounds strange. . ." She laughed and removed her hands from his face to press her palms against her own cheeks, realizing she was blushing. "That sounds strange, but-" Kate shrugged.

"That doesn't sound reassuring."

"Let me finish, Castle. But as strange as it is, as much as I've got to get used to that, it's still true."

He dropped his hands, but didn't step away. She thought that was maybe a step in the right direction.

Finally, Castle took a deep breath and nodded. "All right. So. You're not marrying me today, but some day?"

She was about to say, _Yes of course_, but she happened to catch the look in his eyes before she could open her mouth. He looked desolate, despite the hunger with which he'd kissed her only seconds ago. Hunger born of desperation, she realized. She was hurting him still. It was the last thing she wanted to do.

"Rick."

He looked back to her, steel in his eyes to guard his heart. Had she done that to him? So fast. Maybe she had been doing it to him for years. . .

"Not today."

She saw it; oh God, she saw it die in his eyes as he turned his face away again. Kate stepped closer and hooked her fingers in his belt, hoping that an unexpected move from her might shake him out of it.

"Set a date, Castle."

He didn't say anything.

She tugged him closer, stepped between his legs so she could feel the heat of him. "Castle. Set a date. I'll show up."

"Set a date." He blinked slowly, raised his hands to cradle her face. "A wedding date?"

"What else?"

"Kate," he hedged, his eyes intense on hers. "Kate, don't do this to me again."

She swallowed against that wound and pressed a gentle, soft kiss to his cheek. "Get me a ring, Castle. I'll show up."

"Promise?"

"Always."


End file.
